6 Titanium Hawkeye
by PeechTao -Ezra Cross
Summary: REWRITE FINISHED! Clint's night out after a long medical leave boils into a shocking kidnapping by a figure of his past. Can the Hulk and he work together and save the Avengers before it is too late? Or will the sinister woman destroy everything he holds dear? Team bonding, past love, Clint/team whump, utter madness, and smashing involved. Clintasha for my fans:)
1. Prologue

**uthor Note: **NEWLY EDITED! I HAVE FINISHED THE REVISIONS UP TO AND INCLUDING CHAPTER 9! EXPECT SOME AMAZING CHANGES!

**Disclaimer:** the Number preceding the book title refers to which number in my overall avengers time line this stories falls in.

**Summery:** Clint, recovering from the events of a plane crash, finds himself trapped in Stark Tower with a hard case of boredom. When his quest to escape has him yanking Pepper off the roof, Tony decides to take him for a night out. But not all is as it seems when Stark and the others are kidnapped, leaving Clint and Banner to go to their rescue. What mysterious figure from Clint and Natasha's past has returned? And what is she planning?

* * *

**Titanium Hawkeye**

**Prologue**

_I'm bulletproof, _

_nothing to lose_

_fire away, fire away_

_ricochet, _

_you take your aim_

_fire away, fire away_

_you shoot me down, _

_but I won't fall_

_I am titanium_

_you shoot me down, _

_but I won't fall_

_I am titanium_

The fate of the world should never be left in his hands. Maybe Tony Stark's, possibly even Thor's, but never his. A certain level of responsibility came from having every living creature in the room relying on you to make that right call. Clint Barton did not feel like having so much at stake resting on only his shoulders. He was in a place out of reach, beyond help, and had all of 3.5 seconds to make the _right_ call. No Coulson existed to guide him. No SHIELD operatives took up his place to bark in his ear. So he had to make that choice himself.

Unleash the Hulk or Not? That was his choice.

"Don't freak out." Clint whispered.

Bruce flashed green, his hands turned to fists. But despite these outward appearances of rage he remained relatively calm. "Bruce Banner, Hulk, Avenger, scientist . . ." he began to mouth to himself.

Clint waited for him to speak. Bruce taught him a similar technique to help him through the months following Loki's possession to keep his own mind from shattering to pieces.

"Say it." Bruce commanded. His voice deepened with a growl behind it.

"Are you sure you want me to say it?"

Bruce's eyes snapped open. They progressed from the simple clarity to a hard and deathly black. Clint decided to hide the intimate details temporarily, so he kept it simple to hold the Hulk in a little longer. The situation required tact. Careful planning. Spy work. It did not need the Hulk to go barreling through that Hell hole below them.

"They're running him under a faucet." He half lied. In actuality, the unknown men down there had Tony on his back with a soaked towel over his face as they let all of New York Bay pour over his mouth and nose. Besides being shot through another interdimensional portal, that was Stark's worst fear.

"They're water boarding him?" Bruce didn't glaze over facts.

Clint swallowed. His Adam's apple bobbed as he weighed what the result of his answer might be. No use in keeping it from the guy when he could just stand up and look for himself. "Uh, yes they **_ARE_**—"

His final word rose from the whisper he first intended on to an exclamation of fear. If there was one guy the secret agents should have nabbed first, it was Bruce Banner. Clint could be knocked out, Natasha locked up, Tony water boarded, the Captain shot (a few thousand times), and Thor . . . well whatever they did to him Clint didn't have a name for.

None of that shined a light to what these unknown agents _should_ have done to Bruce Banner. Or, more importantly, what they should have done to the Incredible Hulk. Clint didn't want the part-time doctor going green so quick. Barton wanted the opportunity to snipe a few guys first and even the odds a little, or maybe get a better idea of what they were up against. But the Hulk knew one thing and one thing alone.

**Smash**.

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please continue!


	2. The Morning Before

**Titanium Hawkeye**

**_Chapter 1: The Morning Before_**

Clint Barton remained grounded for longer than he cared to think about. Being mortal caused more issues when surrounded by a group of super heroes than he could possibly foresee. When he agreed to join the team, not long after Nick Fury called him out for his near suicidal acceptance of high-profile missions, Clint was already on a seven week long recuperation from a fractured femur. Only four weeks into that sabbatical, he enjoyed the plane crash that took not only himself, but also Tony Stark out of commission for another four weeks.

Despite his forced "time off" he managed to get into some mission ready shape. He assisted Natasha with her make up to woo a KGB operative and fought with Tony more than once. He even had time to save the billionaire's life and play a few rounds of Russian roulette with Natasha and Thor. Despite these attempts at keeping himself occupied, he had yet to leave the Tower. Beyond that, he hadn't been allowed passed the top three floors either. Steve thought, correctly, that should Clint be afforded the opportunity to see the gym he may do himself more harm than good by working out.

Unfortunately for the archer, everyone else agreed to the Captain's considerations. Tony banned him from the majority of the Tower and Clint was left to stew all day long in the private living quarters designed specifically for the team.

His forced solitude often led Clint to the well of bad decisions. He broke into the swimming pool. The chlorine aggravated the sutures holding his insides in which forced the private physician to come by and replace them. Unable to be in the gym, he instead worked in the solace of his room. With his bow in one hand and an entire quiver of standard arrows, he designed his own wall art. Steve Rogers found out and Clint's bow mysteriously disappeared along with all of his arrows.

The more creative he became the more his teammates pushed back. Soon he found himself one step short of a padded room and nothing to his name save some clothing from the Heli-carrier. He was going house happy. Any longer trapped in the windowless room of his in the tallest tower of New York and he would go positively insane.

Lying awake at three in the morning was another of his body's latest rebellions. Lacking any physical exertion his body decided sleep counted as more of an option than a requirement. Thoughts were hard to come by, in fact, they were darned near unattainable. The last place he wanted to sit at that time of the insomnic morning was in his room, especially under the constant scrutiny of Tony's newly installed security camera. Clint proved countless times he could not be trusted to remain alone.

That left Clint Barton with three options. He could suck up his own displeasure and stay in his room under full surveillance, stay in his room and spray paint JARVIS's monitors with a mixture of chocolate syrup and Pam (the only objects he could find for such work in the living quarters), or find some other place to squat. He attempted the second option with mixed, almost toxically overpowering results. Not to mention he fell off a chair and bashed himself sideways on a dresser drawer.

After suffering in silence for a few minutes, he gave up and settled on the next- less dangerous- escape approach. At 3 AM he had limited places to take off to. The windows were sealed, the tower's AI wouldn't let him below the 89th floor no matter how he begged, and if he made too much noise the entire hoard of Banner, Pepper, Rogers, and Stark would rain down on him.

He worked for a short time on the JARVIS level security system linked to the elevator door. When the insomnia hit, it made the most sense to work at something productive. Unfortunately, the firewall was considerable enough to keep even Clint's steady hands from breaching the elevator doors. After the elevator he worked his way to the kitchen. Early morning snacks were always warranted.

If he went through the trouble of making snacks, it made sense to stay in the common area and watch something while he ate. He parked himself on the oversized sofa with a bowl full of pecans, popcorn, and applesauce, and settled in for whatever the early morning channels would have to offer. Unsurprisingly the pickings were slim. NCIS he found overrated, BONES held a full five-minute interest until a case obviously involving a 9mm handgun was determined to be caused by a .45 (a heinous deception of the unknowing public), but his favorite was some show called _The Unusuals_. He sat up through the first four episodes in a row, and then passed out with a stolen bag of Ritz crackers mixed in his cup of yogurt half way through the fifth.


	3. Saturday Morning at a More Reasonable

**Titanium Hawkeye**

**_Chapter 2: Saturday Morning at a More Reasonable Hour_**

"Oh. My. Thor! Wow, they really captured the heart of you, I mean, it hits me right here!" Tony Stark exclaimed, tapping a finger against the blue light in his chest. He sat in the recliner by Clint's head with his coffee in one hand and the bowl of pecans in the other.

From the appearance of the common kitchen this morning he could see Clint had gotten out of his room and gone on a bender of some sort. Unfortunately this became more common the longer the Hawk's wings remained clipped though everyone attempted to ignore the signs of his discontent.

There was still a bottle of Hershey syrup missing. JARVIS tried to explain something about its use though the only information Tony gathered was that the camera in Clint's room had been covered, Natasha was missing, and a can of Pam had been misplaced as well. The affection between the spies could be felt like a live wire but despite that fact Tony had never seen them act on it. He doubted he was wrong about their attention to each other.

At some point in the night Clint's body gave up its insomnia act and Tony found him stretched across the couch in his underclothes. The TV ran most of the night. It was impossible to tell what he had started out watching but the show on now created enough of a draw to pull Tony up short, then sit him down to watch in utter curiosity. With a full morning of the show scheduled to marathon, he settled in with Clint's discarded, though peculiar, snacks and let the television suck him in.

He had almost forgotten Hawkeye's presence entirely. However, a particularly awesome moment arose in the Saturday morning cartoon that had Tony struggling on the edge of hysterics. Clint flung awake, then hissed and cursed as he held his side together in agony.

"Oh, hey, sorry!" Tony apologized.

Given the trouble the injured man gave them it was easy to forget he had any wounds to protect. He had an array of fresh scars. One rib was now held together with nuts and bolts, similar hardware the doctors were forced to remove from the head of his femur, and his last rib on the right side shattered and was removed. With his Hanes t-shirt and boxers on, only the six inch slice stitched together on his face displayed the difficult two months he'd just endured.

Tony continued more quietly. "I forgot your wings were still clipped. Hey, you have to see this! They've got you looking good. And I never saw myself as the leadership sort of guy, but what the heck? It's my toys after all. Fury is perfect."

Clint squeezed his eyes a little tighter, trying to decide whether his aging wounds were happier rolling over and going back to sleep or waking up and having a conversation with Stark. When his left eye cracked open to the sound of his name being called by some strange voice, his fate sealed. He got up.

"You and Cap are the leaders and what in the world are you watching?" Clint asked, not really wanting the answer.

As he stirred to life, he watched a cartoonized, purple masked, version of Clint Barton storming across the flat screen with a recurve bow. Some sultry red head that could only be Black Widow proceeded to bash his head in. The mini, primary color figures beat each other mercilessly in sheer comic book _crash-pow_ style before coming to a suitable head.

"Life-like isn't it? I think that's what she did to you two weeks ago, you remember? For installing that ghost into my mainframe that duplicated my security badge and allowed you to sneak onto the gym level?" Tony obviously enjoyed the demonstration of improbable skill.

"I said what the Hell are you watching?" Hawkeye repeated, already pushed up into a relatively sitting position. His back ached from sleeping on the couch (or falling on a dresser), and his stomach didn't feel all that appreciative of the pretty-near-pregnant binge he went on.

"Actually, the first time you asked you didn't curse at me."

"And the first time I asked, you didn't answer me. Or the second time."

The two watched as cartoon Natasha left cartoon Clint in a jumbled heap and managed to escape a burning warehouse. Not a short scene later, cartoon Captain America chased down cartoon Barton on his motorcycle.

"What gives?" Clint couldn't help but ask.

"Uh, you're like a bad guy. This is halfway true. You are pretty glummy. And apparently lady killer sold you up the river to this crazy undead guy who sucks your soul dry or something like that. We totally have our own cartoon and no one ever asked me about licensing! This must be SHIELD's new fundraiser. I blame you for this."

"You're blaming me?"

"You're SHIELD."

"I'm an Avenger before I'm SHIELD."

"I really think you were SHIELD before you were an Avenger."

"I would never wear that much purple." Clint felt the need to point out

"Yeah but we should totally get you you're own pointy cowl to wear around with us. I do think the skirt is a little much, even for you. But if that's your thing, man . . ." Tony replied, grinning as if the plans were already crossing the etch-a-sketch in his brain.

"Don't make me stick your head in the kitchen sink with a dishrag over your face." Clint warned.

"Do I need to call psych and tell them about your daddy issues?"

The two shared a minor challenging glance. Bribery, self-sacrifice, and mutual smack downs were the basis of their friendship. They knew this arrangement would prove no true disagreement between them so the matter dropped amicably.

"Gimme a handful of that." Clint ordered, his hand held out in the space between them.

Tony pushed the bowl to him, Clint grabbed his share out, and the two sat and watched their alter egos storm through an evil egg headed baddy's house. They laughed in unison when it was Thor who lit the guy up and the Hulk who thrust him through four sequential walls. Their passion died out a little as the episode puttered to an end. Then they reclaimed their excitement when a new one started up.

Before long the various other tower members began to appear. Bruce arrived first. He held a cup of coffee, given to him by the cleaning lady, Elsa, who worked to straighten the kitchen wreckage Banner wasn't even allowed near. At the sight of Tony and Clint laughing beside each other and tearing apart a show the two of them were watching, Bruce couldn't keep his distance. He approached quietly, not wanting to get in between Clint and Tony's obviously blossoming friendship. In his opinion, they needed each other. In the challenging times ahead of them as a team, they needed to bond as individuals. The life and death scenario only two weeks prior brought them immeasurably closer.

Despite his attempt to remain aloof of the conversation, Banner was roped in anyway.

"Bruce! You need to sit and watch this. Just toss pie-in-your-eye to the floor." Tony said.

"I think that was the least creative attempt at my nickname yet."

"I haven't finished my coffee."

Clint sat up a little more, pulling his legs up to his chest to give Bruce a spot on the opposite end of the couch to sit. Bruce took the offering with some trepidation, unsure of what he may have just gotten himself into.

The first thing that stood out to him was the obvious lack of any healthy food within a forty foot radius. He didn't know what concoction of slimy popcorn entered Clint's mouth but he doubted he even wanted to know.

"So, you guys have a "_night_" up or something?" Banner asked, air quoting the emphasized word.

"No, just him. I found him passed out with Jerry Springer in the background and then this came on. Oh, and I never knew your inner voice of calm was a twenty year old hippy with rocker hair."

Before Bruce could ask what the billionaire was talking about, said inner cartoon Bruce Banner appeared on the Avengers' Saturday morning show. Tony wasn't far off, the guy did look like a 60s era hipster with one too many special brownies in his system. Banner found himself transfixed by his alter form chatting via mirror with the Hulk. He wondered if his life would work so easily, but swiftly dismissed the errant thought. He opened his mouth to say something, but it just hung open instead, unsure of how he should respond to the show.

"Oh, there I am. I have to say, I love the suit within a suit, but frankly it's a little pointless. Besides, the best part is that I am the head honcho, and that's just plain— Holy crap there's Thor! BWAHAHAHAHA!"

As both Tony and Clint went into another round of hysterics and Banner covered his own shock and horror behind his hands, in walked the fourth and fifth additions to the breakfast troop. Both Thor and Natasha entered the room. The normally non-coffee drinking Romanov was carrying a mug and Thor had little more than a pair of barely-there boxers and, of course, his hammer. Thor pulled up short, his attention riveted on the magical box with a figure of his likeness in heated battle with other strangely colorful beings.

Natasha showed no emotion from the show. She walked over, perched on the sofa arm beside Clint's head and handed him the coffee cup. It could have been poisoned, but he took it without question. From her, he always would. Following the cup, she held out her balled fist. He opened a hand beneath it and allowed her to drop six or seven pills into it. He threw them in his mouth without even looking and swallowed a mouthful of coffee to get them down. Natasha's hand went to his shoulders as it slowly kneaded away a knot the ill night's sleep created.

That was the extent of their conversation. No "_Good morning, how did you sleep_," or "_You look ravishing in leather in the morning_". What could be called their relationship amounted to little more than her feeding him all the meds and bringing his typical cup of coffee. If the other's noticed this was a daily occurrence, they never said so.

Thor, intrigued beyond words, watched as his likeness summoned all the sky thunder available to cartoon animators and decimated four rather nasty looking beasties. Thor sank down seven inches from the big LCD screen. His hammer made a sizable crack in the floor tile beside him.

Tony cringed. He wanted to say something snarky about it, but he held his tongue in an unusual show of self-restraint. He was too interested in watching the Asgardian's reaction to interrupt with a quibble.

"What be this mystical creation of color? And why does he hold the power of Odin in his hand?" Thor asked.

"It's an alternate reality in which we have been miniaturized and broadcast throughout the realms for general entertainment." Clint said.

Natasha looked at him with her eyebrow raised. "That's mean."

"It's simply amazing!" Thor went on, transfixed. "To think another creation like me exists! Even in so strangely colored a world as that!"

Tony snorted. Banner shook his head. Clint held his side in hopes his damaged rib didn't split in half.

"I must say he looks like a great warrior with so much hair covering his face. Perhaps I shall take some lessons from this strange brother."

"For crying out loud, it's a Saturday cartoon. It's not real. Some bozo came up with it to entertain kids." Natasha's realistic side caught up with her.

Thor looked at her as if his entire world suddenly collapsed. His eyebrows creased, his shoulders somehow found the way to slouch, and his body physically seemed to sink in.

"Ah, I have heard of these strange entertainment ploys of humankind." He replied dejectedly.

Both Tony and Clint shot Natasha a disapproving glance.

"Now what'd you go and ruin that for? You broke Thor!" Tony blasted at her.

"You're the one putting stupid ideas in his head." Natasha shot back, undaunted. "And by the way, teaching him curse words as a way of saying hello in Russian is wrong on a whole other level."

"Hey, can't blame me for that one, he picked it up from Banner."

Bruce snorted, but restrained the remainder of his laughter as Natasha's daggers zeroed in on him.

"What on Earth are you watching?"

The five bodies turned to welcome the newest member to the Saturday morning party, Steve Rogers. He was dressed in simple slacks and his white t-shirtSweat stained most of him in one area or another. Given the time, it didn't take a great leap to realize he'd probably been in the gym for three or four hours already. That was enough to work up any appetite.

Their unofficial co-leader (sharing the title with Tony Stark) stood over the back of the sofa, looking at the screen he'd never gotten used to enough to actually play with. He was more of a bookworm. Even the digital displays in Banner's lab gave his eyes fits and threatened to bring a migraine around. Now with the surround sound blaring about four dozen explosions and the fifty-some-odd inch flat screen television switching from one cartoon Avenger to another, Steve's eyes were fixed.

"They got your suit pretty good, Steve." Banner announced. It was his way of inviting Captain America into the strange bonding moment the team formed.

"Yeah, with one glaring exception. I'm calling all of the shots. Which I kind of like the idea of. Can we try that out ourselves for like, the next month and see how it goes?" Stark was chomping on pecans and talking at the same time. His question wasn't even meant as a joke.

But everyone laughed anyway.

"But, I don't get . . . I . . ." Steve stood there with his head cocked to one side as he watched the screen. Cartoon Captain America rumbled his motorcycle across thirteen city roofs and down a sheer wall before taking out six space-age aliens in a single swoop. Then he attacked them with his shield and four other Avengers beside him. It was glaringly obvious who was missing after he did a quick on-screen head count.

"What, no Natasha?" Steve asked.

Clint snickered.

Natasha stiffened a little. She had come in after her character already rolled off into the sunset. She had been wondering the exact same question but maturity prevented her from voicing the opinion. What did she care why her character wasn't included and some other primpy version of Agent Bobbi Morse had her hands all over Clint instead? And she called herself the Mockingbird. _Really_? Was that the best she could come up with?

Natasha felt her jaw muscles tense and her need to show Agent Morse a piece of her mind became a more and more irrational thought. Sure Clint and Bobbi had a thing back in the day before Natasha joined SHIELD full-time. Clint broke it off . . . and then Bobbi broke it off . . . and then they had a massive blow-out fight in the middle of an undercover mission. Everyone knew about it but no one asked the particulars. Clint didn't offer information like that to random passersby. When Natasha began to join Clint's missions on a more permanent basis, Bobbi looked her up.

_"He'll love you and he'll break your heart."_ Bobbi told her. Natasha didn't need to be warned about men. She had spent over half her life manipulating them. But there was something different about the archer that Bobbi hated. Maybe it was the light in her eyes, the cloud of overwhelming disappointment, or the fact that she was still madly in love with him but refused to admit it.

Unaware of Natasha's memory-dwelling, Clint explained the lack of Black Widow's presence. "Yeah, apparently Tasha sold me out to some other bad guy and is playing the double-Russian-agent card to the max. I'd like to know who told them about Bobbi."

Bruce angled an upturned eyebrow at the archer. "Do I detect history there, Hawk?"

Clint didn't respond to the attempt at opening his past up.

Privately Natasha considered his peculiar response, but beside a simple twinge in her lips, and a hand pressing a little bit harder against Clint's sore shoulders no one was the wiser. _Bobbie. He called her Bobbie. When did they get back to first-name-basis? She wasn't even around when the Heli-carrier got hit. She didn't even visit when Clint was in recovery. He still cares about her._

"She seemed awful cold after she came by to debrief us after—" Tony stopped himself before he mentioned the New York attack. That was another private struggle he'd been working through on his own. Without missing a beat he changed tactic. "You asked if she wanted any Shwarma and she said you looked cute covered in alien blood."

Clint recalled the scene though his expression didn't change. "I remember."

"So you two a thing once?"

"I'm not talking about that."

Tony's facial hair twisted downward into a frown. "I am going to find out."

Natasha didn't often spiral into an emotional outburst. Typically the ability to keep her feelings over situations and people in check was her most useful asset. What Clint did to her that made all her careful years of training fly straight out a window, she never knew. But listening to him and sensing his body respond to the old memories of Bobbi Morse, caused a jealousy she couldn't control. She grabbed the back of Clint's neck right where his spine flowed down into the flesh of his shoulders. She squeezed hard which elicited a paralytic spasm.

He gasped.

"Treat me like you treated her and you'll have a new definition for the term "break up"." The Black Widow whispered. Her voice was pure venom.

"You don't know anything more about Bobbi and me than the rest of them." Clint strained to say. "Besides, you're one to talk."

_En guarde!_

Fireworks erupted in the epicenter of Clint and Natasha. Whatever history they had and refused to share with the group passed through the air between them like cannon fire on a war line.

Tony felt like he crapped his pants _for_ Clint. He knew the agents had been together for a while. Maybe they were even born in the same crib and given the same SHIELD slop to eat for the past twenty years. He imagined a romantic relationship had sprung up between the two of them, but when two assassins are in a relationship, _romantic_ was not exactly the word he would go for first. Volatile? Now that fit more appropriately.

"Oh, that reminds me. I don't mind if you kids use my chocolate sauce and non-stick spray in the middle of the night, just don't make a mess and return them when you're done." Tony said in an effort to get Black Widow to extract her fangs from his friend's neck before she drained him dry like a succubus.

Thor, having no idea what any of those words meant, continued to watch himself on television. Banner held a hand to his mouth in shock but did everything he could not to say a word. Steve at first wanted to call Natasha off, but the minute Tony opened his mouth Steve's jaw hit the floor.

"What the _Hell_ are you talking about, Stark!" Natasha's fury whirled in a sudden turn of events on Tony. For one, she called him "Stark". That was a bad sign in itself, like your mother calling you by your first _and_ middle name.

"Well, JARVIS pointed out that Clint's security cams were a little, hmm, covered. And the way he was wearing a stupid grin on his face this morning…" Tony shrugged, as if it was the most logical conclusion he could come up with.

Natasha had performed as Tony initially planned and released Clint from her clutches. Now she was doing nothing more than just standing over Tony's chair. That move alone was enough for him to start thinking about his will.

"And you think that we had hot raucous sex while you weren't looking?" She snarled.

Clint held both hands over his mouth trying desperately not to make a sound. He was splitting inside with his utter merriment at Tony's expense.

"Ah! Sex! A wonderful way to bond between two partners. My congratulations to you Clint of Barton for such accomplishment! The Widow is a fair beauty." Thor suddenly butted back into the conversation.

Natasha was bright red with shame and anger . . . But mostly anger. Tony waited, his body scrunched into a ball for her to begin wailing on him mercilessly but nothing happened. Instead, as he slowly opened his eyes to get a bead on her location, he realized she wasn't standing over him at all. In fact, and perhaps the scariest thing he could have ever considered, she was gone.

"Plotting her revenge, no doubt." Steve said, as if reading Tony's mind. "Better watch your back. No telling when she'll get you."

Clint, unable to contain himself any longer laughed so hard he began to cry.

"Oh my God, I can't believe you thought that . . . That was the funniest thing I have ever heard . . . I used the chocolate on the cameras, Tony, you're such an idiot, it was the darkest stuff I could find, and the nonstick spray didn't obscure the image enough. I just wanted a minute of sleep where somebody wasn't watching me like some weirdo. That's so . . . I think I'm gonna pass out . . ." Clint attempted to take in some short, pained breaths as his healing wounds gave him grief.

"Well what was I supposed to think? I'm blaming you for this too." Tony demanded.

"Fine, blame me, but that's not going to save you later." Clint pointed out. He wiped the tears from his eyes, his hand snagging on the line of sutures keep his face in one piece. He continued laughing in slow, jumbled bursts as his body finally started to calm down.

Disappointingly their show entered its last episode for the morning. Steve took up a second chair behind Thor and watched with interest at how he was portrayed by others. Every second the name Hydra appeared, something inside him clanged around, like a metal gong beating against his heart. He knew that lead weight would be following him for a long time to come. Though the organization was going for good, he couldn't help looking over his shoulder once in a while. Red Skull, Nazis, the war that set the world on fire . . . they were vivid memories for him that he struggled through every day. If it took a cartoon to keep people remembering Hydra's name and whose side they were on, he was all for it.

Thor just liked watching himself on television.

Banner for his part was less interested in the show. He didn't mind how it made the Hulk look less like a beast and more like a thinking human—thing. But his interest had moved passed that to his responsibility as medical chief of sorts for the team. Currently, his focus trained on the stitches in Clint's face and his mind calculated about precisely how many days it had been since they had been set. When he came up with the same number twice (fifteen days) he decided to pose his question.

"Clint, you know, I think I can take those out today. If you want."

"Oh, oh, my stitches. Sure, course. Have at it. Does that mean I can work out now? Or, like, leave my room?" Hawkeye had to catch up with Banner's train of thought for a minute to realize what was being said.

Banner thought about it. Technically his degree was not in medical science, but he knew a bad idea when it came to him.

"Uh, no."

"Can I swim?"

Now that made him think twice. Physically it was less impact then having the guy sneaking through the Tower to get to the gym level he'd been locked out of. "Well, ok. Yeah we'll try that out for a little while and see how you do. But no pushing yourself or I'll have Fury ground you for the next ten weeks."

"No funny stuff, cross my heart." Clint held his palms out.

"Oh, not crossing your fingers?" Banner chuckled, heading out to get his medical bag.

"Tony's doing that for me." Clint told him. Stark nodded and smiled in reply.

Steve watched the two defiant members of the team. He didn't know Clint that well. Time really never gave them the chance to get to know each other. The archer was either perched someplace out of contact, strolling about with Natasha on his heels, or in recovery. It made him feel a little guilty. He should know his team the best but Barton proved a surprisingly quiet man. Oh he had opinions, wise-aleck statements, and sarcasm enough to fill a comedy club. AS for true conversation? That he never dove deep enough to uncover. Tony had somehow managed to crack him, and perhaps that was as good as Steve was going to get. So, he sat back like an outsider watching an old married couple tripping kids in the park. They made him smile, but at the same time he had to remember never to leave Stark and Barton to their own devices. Ever.

Banner came back a short time later with a few tools in his hands. Clint swung his legs over the couch and sat up while the impromptu doctor set to the monumental task of taking out the forty-odd stitches holding his face together. By choice, Clint had yet to see himself in any reflective surface. He even avoided windows. There was no mirror in his bathroom; he'd had Elsa take it out when he was conscious enough to ask her to. She seemed a little disappointed, but she didn't say anything. She didn't take it away completely either. Wordlessly she'd slipped it behind his headboard, in case he changed his mind.

So far he hadn't. Not that Clint was a vain person by any means. He knew a chunk had been cut from his ear and the plastic surgeon did his best to re-stitch it together. Seeing the stitches holding him together like one of Frankenstein's monsters was a little too much to deal with.

Watching the cartoon provided a sufficient distraction for him to ignore Bruce's work, even if he was the only one beside Thor still absorbed in it. He knew Tony had moved out of his chair. The guy stood a little behind him and off to the side, watching the dismantling of Clint's face. Steve too inspected the process. They both wanted to see how badly the scar had set.

"Well, you can always tell people a pit-bull grabbed your face." Tony tried to joke. His voice again fell flat of actually mirth. It made Clint terrified of how bad it really was.

"I had a pit-bull once; he was the pest dog I've ever owned." Clint told him. That was a lie. He'd never owned a dog before. His hands tried to shake, but he picked up his empty coffee cup and sat their squeezing it.

"Don't let him throw you. It looks fine. I'll have you keep up with the ointment I gave you while the scar fades the rest of the way." Banner said gently, like a good doctor should.

"Or you could grow a big bushy beard up to your eyeballs." Tony put in.

"Don't think that'll work out too well with shooting a bow." Added Steve.

All Clint thought was: _Is it that bad, do I need to grow a beard_? The coffee cup wasn't enough. He needed to squeeze something harder and not worry about it shattering in his hand. Suddenly he wished Natasha hadn't left his side. She'd hold his hand and not make it obvious that he needed her to.

As he felt Bruce's little tools working further and further across his face, up to his ear, behind his ear, he had a feeling for the real extent of the damage. He wasn't sure what had ripped his face open. The wrecking crew from the plane crash thought it may have been the windshield, or the edge of the dashboard. But it didn't really matter where it came from. All that mattered was the aftermath. At least he still had both eyes. He everyone reminded him daily how lucky he was to be granted that little miracle.

"Well, that's the last of it I think." Bruce announced. This brought both Steve and Tony forward to give their approval. Tony's face made it seem like Clint had transformed into a disfigured Frankenstein.

"Not bad." The Captain offered.

"Let's go to the kitchen and sit you on a stool, Clint. Then we'll see if I can get the rest of your staples out." Banner stood, leading the way.

Clint swallowed. It still made his skin crawl to think the only thing keeping his stomach from falling out on the floor was a few lines of (intentionally) stapled skin. The truth was more complicated than that, he knew. The doctors gave him sickening detail of all the layers of muscles fitted back together like miniature jigsaw puzzles to get him back in one shape. They thought it would make him more cautious, less likely to do stupid things that tore his wounds open.

It did not work.

"This is what, the third set of staples I've had in you?" Banner asked more to himself than Clint.

Hawkeye shrugged. He walked a little stiffly from sleeping on the couch. Tony followed behind with the Captain. Neither man planned to miss the rest of the gross-doctor lesson. Steve went to the fridge, now that he was allowed in it, and pulled himself out a tall glass of water. He sat on the other side of the island as Banner helped get Clint's shirt off. Tony stood to the left of Bruce, watching like a mother hen.

"Looks good." Bruce announced, as if no one else knew what they were looking at. A six-inch line of silver staples arced from his midline and off to the right of his chest. A more jagged line crossed his back like a train track. Other minor cuts from glass shards and who knew what else pock marked every other available surface of his chest and back.

"How's it feel?"

Clint shrugged. "How's it supposed to feel?"

"Any pain? Where is it the worst? Is it all over, or one spot?"

Clint took a minute to think about that as Banner got out his surgical staple-removers. "My chest doesn't feel too bad. Rib's giving me a little trouble now and then. Not awful."

"When you move around, what seizes you up?" Bruce tried again.

"I don't know. It's my back mostly or around it." Clint shrugged again.

Bruce let the comment hang in the air between them. He knew Clint was dancing around an issue, as if saying the wrong word would land him handcuffed to his bed. Banner had to find a different way of asking without getting his friend so concerned.

"When can he start back at the gym?" Steve asked. He was more curious than anything else. The silence had fallen in the room as Thor remained absorbed by the cartoon.

"Oh, I don't know. Light exercise to start with. No archery yet. If everything looks all right, then maybe another week or two."

Clint groaned.

"Oh, what're you complaining about, I've got four more weeks in this thing." Tony waved his cast as if no one remembered it was there.

"Yeah, but you can hide yourself in a big metal suit." Clint pointed out.

"Are you jealous?"

"Right now? Maybe."

"I am so making you a big purple costume with a pointed purple cowl." Tony said. "JARVIS, we're back in creation mode. Get me purple fabric."

"I swear if I see that thing in my room, I'm coming for you first." Clint rolled his eyes.

"_Sir, Agent Barton seems a little less then pleased at the prospect of your new creation idea." _JARVIS felt the need to point out.

"Hey, whose side are you on?" argued the billionaire.

"Mine, now good JARVIS."

"Hey, you already have Pepper catering to you; leave my AI out of it."

"Maybe JARVIS just likes me better."

"He's programmed to prefer me."

Banner already adjusted himself as Clint stood and Tony approached, and the two sat volleying back and forth over his head, but now they were so close, Banner had trouble getting anything done at all. He stood up, effectively separating them.

"All right, had enough the two of you? Tony, back to your corner. Clint, take a seat before I make you sit. And I'll be honest; the Hulk isn't so nice when it comes to medical precision." Bruce wasn't angry, at least he didn't seem to be, but the threat was enough to make them behave. Tony retreated and Clint sat again.

Silence dropped over them as Banner finished his work on the front of Clint's body. He then twisted around to the back and started there. A nice purple bruise formed around the wound.

"How's this feel?" Bruce asked, probing along the repaired rib.

"It's not happy, but all right." Clint winced.

"How not happy is not happy? One to ten?"

"Two and a half?"

Bruce's fingers traced along the same rib in both directions. It had broken in two places, the very end as it curved to his chest and the base almost exactly where it welded to his spine. The rib just below had been obliterated in a shower of eighty five little shards, not all of which could be found.

He moved lower, palpating the bruise for any increased tenderness. The doctor was so involved in his study he missed the ever increasing paleness swamping Clint's features.

"What about here?" Bruce asked. "You bruised your liver."

"Three." Clint lied. He was feeling an eight at the least. Perhaps even a nine. At first the pain was somewhat bearable. Clint simply fidgeted a little, screwed up his face, and took it like a man. But then it went from something nagging, a wound still unhealed to a near colossal wave of suffering that hit him like a sock in the gut. Or the liver.

"Hey, Bruce, I think that's enough—" Steve tried to say.

Clint was half leaning against the center island. His hand held tightly to the edge of the counter top. He started shaking.

Banner's prodding hands moved slightly lower, into the depression left by the missing rib and Clint tried to scoot forward away from the part-time Hulk. His body went rigid, his legs locked, and he went to move backward a little but for some reason he couldn't. The room looked strangely wobbly. The ceiling flopped around before his eyes and Tony flew forward to grab him.

"Tash?" Clint whispered in confusion.

"Close, lover boy." Tony said. He looked up to Bruce. "What exactly does that mean?"

"I'm not that kind of doctor." Bruce told him. "He needs to get that liver rechecked. He needed to go three days ago but you try and convince him to do it and see how far you get."

"What the Hell—" Clint pushed himself up until he and Bruce were facing each other. His hand held the small of his back where the pain still throbbed.

"Yeah, so, you may or may not be bleeding internally. You need another MRI. Stark's got one someplace downstairs. Course that means all that metal in your chest could come rocketing out." Banner said. His tone was deadpan at best.

Clint struggled to clear his muddy feeling head and understand what he said.

"I could always dig your rib screws out, if you wanted. Or we can try an ultrasound. Pain you're in, ultrasound's probably gonna kill you. We could numb you up. But that would mean oral pain medication and—"

"No." Fuzzy brain or not, Clint understood that. "No drugs. No scans. No doctors. That's all I've had for weeks. I'm sick of it. I'm done."

"If you are bleeding internally then it won't matter how you feel. You will be dead." Steve tried to be the voice of reason.

"I said no!" The archer adamantly refused. He looked briefly from Steve to the others. Every one of them held a more-than-concerned look on their faces, even Thor. The television was turned off.

As if sensing the change in the team, Natasha rejoined the kitchen crew. She remained at his back, taking in the depth of the conversation. She could convince Clint if she had to, or at least distract him if the Avengers decided to drag him kicking and screaming to the ER. But she knew something they did not. She knew the history the agents shared amongst themselves.

No doubt the images flashed through his mind. Torture cells in Budapest: needles under his fingernails, being thrown in the equivalent of a sharp's container, sitting for hours as one by one each was painstakingly pulled free, Natasha standing over him with his bow on her back as slowly she shoved the first hypodermic in. Afterward came the blood tests for AIDS, HIV, and all those all-too-human things that could kill him worse than a bullet to his brain. Countless check-ins, hospital stays, and evaluations. Blood draw after blood draw until Clint felt like he'd been drained dry.

Clint's mouth ran dry as Natasha and he shared the memory. No, he didn't like that hospital plan at all.

"Another option?" Clint asked.

"CT scan, but we'd have to take you to the hospital for that too. For some reason Stark has an MRI machine he can't even use because of his artificial heart-saver and not a CT scan which makes more sense." Bruce said.

"We can find a way to knock you out." Natasha added, making her presence known.

Clint turned slowly to her though he avoided her eyes. The history they shared between each other alone. She knew just as well as he why he rejected the idea of the hospital.

"Third option?" Clint asked, though he wasn't sure if he was even on the third. Maybe he was on the fifth option already. It didn't really matter, none of it sounded particularly appealing.

"All bleeding eventually stops."

Clint now gave Natasha a cynical look.

"Or, we could gas him." Steve suddenly broke in.

The room's attention turned in his direction. At first it sounded like sheer lunacy from a man where gassing on the battle field was regular practice. But then he elaborated, almost getting nods of approval.

"I'm sure between Tony and Bruce they have a bottle of Nitrous oxide somewhere on the RnD levels. You know, laughing gas. You could just dose him a little couldn't you? Be over before you know it. That's what they used on me at the dentist. Actually, I'm not really sure if it's around anymore now that I think about it." Steve shrugged.

Bruce and Tony both exchanged smiles.

"Laughing gas?" Clint asked. But with the dwindling options shot down around him, it looked like laughing gas was his best choice.

_Well, crap_.


	4. Laughing Gas

**Titanium Hawkeye**

**Chapter 3 Laughing Gas**

Natasha stood by grinning while her hand held the surgical mask over Clint's mouth and nose. Just as Steve suggested, they had indeed located a bottle of nitrous oxide hidden under a shelf of Van Gogh paintings on the third level of RnD. Bruce resurrected the paintings to send to Pepper while Tony worked through a textbook on anesthesiology. Within an hour he declared himself an expert, fabricated an anesthetic machine, and stuck Clint in a chair. With limited options at his disposal, Clint left his life in the hands of the men around him.

He only died for five minutes.

Tony miscalculated his gas-to-oxygen ratio and Clint stopped breathing. Steve and Bruce took turns bringing him back from the cliff of death and, with only oxygen flowing through his mask now; they worked to perform an ultrasound before he came fully conscious again.

"Oh my God, this is great. Did you know this is great? Have you smelled this? I mean, it is like . . . butterflies on clouds or something. I swear it's awesome. Does possum rhyme with awesome? Possum's are weird."

"No thanks, I'm good." Natasha told him, replacing the oxygen mask back over Clint's face when he again tried to hand it over.

"You're missing out." Clint said with a whimsical smile.

"I sure am."

Beside them, Banner and Stark scrutinized the media integrated ultrasound unit. The floating head of a holographic Dr. Stephen Strange, a new acquaintance of Dr. Banner, worked as a real-time consult on their findings. In the meantime, Bruce attempted to remember everything the third world medical core taught him about ultrasonography. He knew the white glaring parts were probably gas pockets in the bowels, the dark flat looking parts belonged either to the spleen or the liver and too much black flowing stuff was fluid, therefore not good.

"How you hanging in there, Clint?" Tony asked.

"Did you know that I was in a circus?" Clint retorted with.

Tony gave him a surprised look, and then gave the same on to Natasha.

Her shoulders went up and down a little. "It's true. Far as I know."

"I was—I was the best trick shooter in the place. I didn't tell you that. Did I tell you that? Had to do something, you know, I was like, only twelve. And twelve year people can't, like, have jobs or crap or anything. I like hippos."

Tony tried to steer the conversation into a helpful area of possible dirty little secrets. If Natasha didn't approve, she didn't say anything. Instead, she too seemed a little intrigued. If Clint didn't watch himself he may just reveal some of those deep-seated memories he refused to reveal when sober.

"Sure, yeah, hippos, cool. What about this circus thing? Tell me more about that." Tony asked.

"They could eat guys. Tommy Two Fingers? Guess why he had two fingers?"

"I'm guessing because the hippo ate the others?"

"No! 'Cause he was born like that."

Despite the smile he attempted to hide, Bruce interrupted the heated investigation. He had no doubt in Clint's ability to hide any information he truly wished to keep private. It wasn't long ago Bruce stood over him while he recovered from a leg injury, and the doctor considered asking the same sort of leading questions then, but when Clint's defenses were challenged he sobered immediately.

"I'm sure you're breaking some sort of medical law right now." The doctor said.

"He was a mean guy. He smelled like ralph." Clint pulled his mask off again, just so he could watch as Natasha put it back on. Then he took it off again. "I like circuses. Tigers are cool."

Tony started to understand the strange train of thought now. "Oh, did you worked in the menagerie? With the animals?"

Bruce looked up at Stark, an eyebrow arched.

"I watched _Water for Elephants_, I'm practically an expert."

Natasha rolled her eyes.

"I love elephants!" Clint said. He pulled off his mask again but this time wound up to throw it on the floor.

Natasha caught it in midair and nearly crammed it over his nose. "God, Clint, if you take this thing off one more time _I swear_ I will pick up a staple gun and _nail it to your face_, get me?"

Clint paused for a second, and then burst out laughing. The laughter was infectious. In half a minute Tony bent at the waist and Bruce chuckled in his sleeve while simultaneously fussing with the uncooperative ultrasound probe. Dr. Strange's hologram remained as impassive as a statue.

"Hey, hey, hey, what happened . . . what ever happened with your . . . you know. That thing?" Clint asked, suddenly seeming very serious. He focused on Tony, who in some ways had a hard time looking at him. Seeing Clint like this reminded him a little too clearly of their time spent in the wrecked plane.

"Wow, I can't tell at all what you're saying. Let's talk about monkeys now."

The archer flinched and moved some as Banner passed over a particularly painful spot. Steve adjusted his grip behind Clint's chair and rested his hands on the agent's shoulders. The gas stopped flowing five minutes ago, soon Barton would regain his senses.

"No! No, I mean the _person_ lady. The _trip_. Amsterdam." Clint replied stubbornly.

Tony made an "O" with his mouth as it all began to click. "Don't worry about that. Pushed the date for the defense summit just for little ole me. Now Steve and Thor are invited too. Nice huh? Just a quick video conference in the morning and the world is suddenly a better place."

"That's nice. You know, I don't think I ever want to see Amsterdam again."

"At least our friend does not suffer." Thor said from the lab doorway. He looked around at the strange scene that had been set. Clint reclined in a metal chair that was probably more appropriate for dental work then medical use. Tony bent over a table, laughing his head off, and Bruce and Natasha were both working on Clint staying still enough for the image to quit jumping around.

"I half wish he did feel it to keep him from fussing so much." Banner complained, but somewhere in his tone Thor could tell the guy wasn't really mad. He'd seen mad, and this was not it.

"I assume the fuzzy probe has revealed no maladies?" Thor replied. He walked in, avoiding the majority of the insanity that seemed to roll around in Tony Stark's life by not getting too close to the scene.

When Banner didn't reply right away, Thor's concern spiked.

"Do you see this, doctor?" Bruce asked.

Doctor Strange's image leaned forward as he scrutinized his screen. "It appears to be a pocket. Is it dorsal?"

"Yes."

"I would advise sampling it."

"Hey, Tony, hand me that hypo, would you?" Bruce instructed.

Natasha leaned forward in a split second and covered Clint's ears as if he was a three-year-old. The look she gave to Banner could have killed on impact. "What the Hell! He said no needles! We agreed!"

Banner held up one hand as if to prove he was unarmed, the other held the probe steady near Clint's back. "Look, I'm not a medic like I keep saying. But there is something collecting under his skin here, see it?" Bruce indicated the place on screen. "I just want to see if its blood. That's all."

"But he doesn't like needles." Natasha whisper-growled, a peculiar tone all her own when it came to being angry and quiet all at once.

Clint stopped laughing now. He seemed to realize, even in his haze, that something bad was being discussed over him. Then a random thought crossed his mind and he couldn't help sharing it.

"Budapest wasn't fun. But I liked you. Even though you tortured me for like twelve days, I liked you. You were kinda cute. In like a homicidal, psycho Russian-wacko sort of way." He announced as his eyes fell on Natasha.

Natasha chewed her lip and looked around to see if anyone else noticed what he said. If they did, no one said a word. Tony was closest, and he just handed the needle over discreetly. Bruce popped the cap off and poised it over the spot he noticed on the ultrasound.

"Use the image as a guide. You will see the needle on the visual." Dr. Strange advised.

"Hey, whazzat?" Clint asked. Some terrified part of his mind wanted desperately to freak out, throw a tantrum, or stab someone but his haze nullified it. He felt Steve's grip tighten. The room tensed. He held it together long enough to get stabbed in the side.

The dull pain not completely shadowed by the former flow of gas, bothered him less. In fact, he'd gotten rather used to it. Something else really bothered him about what they were doing. As if it was wrong somehow and Natasha stood there, letting it happen.

Just like that day in Budapest.

She leaned in for his face. He'd pulled the mask off again, but this time it he resisted putting it back. Her pupils widened. Steve leaned forward at Natasha's serious look and attempted to clamp Clint into the chair if necessary.

Needle . . .** needle** . . . _**NEEDLE!**_

Clint analyzed his enemy almost at the same moment his fog cleared. Banner hit the floor with a boot-print attempting to bruise the Hulk he was turning into. Steve and Tony had both moved Natasha to the side and grabbed Clint before he rolled off the chair and hit the floor. The angry Russian pulled out the needle that still poked from Clint's chest and flung it at the Hulk.

The green monster roared at her. He smashed an angry hand right through the hood of Tony's new suit.

"Hey! If you're going to be angry at anything, then take it out on Butter-Finger's baby because that thing, it's sad honestly." Stark exclaimed.

The Hulk must have been taking lessons from Natasha because Tony swore those two had the same dagger looks in their arsenal. But then again, the Hulk did end up taking Tony's advice. He picked up the AI and hurled it through four walls until the street became visible. Four car accidents may or may not have been caused by a yellow automated arm flying through the south end of Manhattan according to the mid-morning news.

"I'm not going to be mad about that." Tony told him resolutely.

"Get off!" Clint roared.

Steve and Tony both let go at once.

The archer pushed himself up, wobbled when he realized his legs felt like lead weights, and decided to stay where he was. Within a minute he headed out of the room, grabbing his shirt off the back of the chair before the Hulk could relax his way back into Bruce Banner.

"Well, not sure what kind of success that constitutes, but your patient just walked out in the middle of his own exam." Steve turned to the Hulk, as if he would find some answers there.

Dr. Strange smiled for the first time as he leaned into the image generator. "You guys are fun. Invite me over for the next powwow."

:(:):(:):

No more planning games. No more pretending to be on house arrest. Clint Barton was getting out of Stark Tower if he had to carve himself a hole in the wall of his room to do it. How could anyone expect him to stick in Stark Tower for the next ten weeks without so much as a breath of fresh air? He wanted dinner at a dive to enjoy the possibility of overcoming a salmonella infection or at least eat something not hermetically sealed in a freezer box. First he needed to get his room to grab whatever money he could scrape together and then somehow he was getting out.

What did the team want from him? Every chance they got, one of them drilled him for information about his past. He didn't share. SHIELD knew him as the one guy on a team with a background no one could quite nail down. The only man who cracked an iota of his previous life was Phil Coulson, and his surrogate father took those secrets to the grave. Natasha fell second best on the contest for his inner secrets. Bobbi Morse placed third.

How could she not? He'd married Bobbi once, albeit briefly. He was young and dumb then. He thought the entire world could be held up by his shoulders alone. That didn't change until someone threatened to split her body in half unless Clint left her. He did what he could to protect her, but that wasn't enough to keep her out of a hospital bed. Bobbi could never know the truth. For her own safety he kept it from her. Eight months after their marriage, she divorced him on Valentine's Day.

Boy howdy.

After a thorough search of everything in his room, Clint realized something very important. He already knew most of his clothes did not make it to the Tower from his bunk on the Heli-carrier. What he did not expect was the lack of his wallet as well. Before now he never needed it. He'd been restricted to quarters for longer than he liked and that meant no driving, flying, or using his own cash. Not only did he have no money to speak of, he didn't even have an ID to drive with if he wanted to.

"Fine." Clint growled to himself. He lived in hitchhike city and a little thing like a missing wallet wasn't about to stop him.

He grabbed his leather jacket from beside his bed and pulled on his shoes. In the few minutes it would have taken the others to calm Bruce down and go in search of their wayward Hawkeye, he was already moving to find his escape route. He'd kept the top of the Tower in the back of his mind the whole time. As long as they kept his repelling arrowheads out of reach, the others figured they were safe from worrying whether or not he would do a Spiderman from building to building. Oh how wrong they could be. Honestly, he was a master assassin. A little ability to find escape routes encompassed his world.

Before he had a chance to leave his room, someone began to walk in. He heard them coming, fussing with something just outside the entryway. They took long enough for him to decide a secondary exit strategy, cash in pocket or not. He was halfway to the interior wall with a decision to cut his way straight through when a burst of laughter caught him up short.

"Mr. Barton, you are funny. What do you plan to do?"

The last person Clint expected to see was Elsa, but then it did make total sense. She was paid to keep the place organized and with the mess he made of (everything) in his room it was no surprise she waited until now to get to it. Clint placed himself in an awkward position. Getting caught in the wrecked bedroom resembled destroying a hotel room in Las Vegas then waking up to the cleaning lady standing over his bed with a look of murder. Clint felt more fear in that moment with Elsa standing across from him than the last two months working with the Avengers.

"You planning on running off and leaving me with the clean-up?" Elsa asked. She pushed her cleaning cart into the room, the doorway hung open behind her as an open invitation for escape.

. "You know, just getting a little cage-happy. Don't even have a window in here. Tony's not exactly that great of a host if he sticks a hawk in the only windowless room in the Tower." Clint gave her a lop-sided grin, as if his Caucasian charm could win over her Indian-American roots

"I believe he thought you may try and jump out it."

"Wasn't so wrong." Clint replied. He moved toward the doorway. In another step he'd be bolting through it like a deer.

"And you are planning to run off now? Is that it? And you have nothing to get cab with in Manhattan? I think you will not get very far, Mr. Barton." Elsa pulled out various items of her cleaning arsenal. Clint stopped moving for the door.

The woman had highlighted the one part of his plan he had been struggling with all along. If the others were still collected in Tony's lab he would simply steal a car and life would be easy. But how far could he make it on foot?

"Here is for you." She walked up to him and pulled a handful of dollars out of her pocket. This she deposited into his hand (even though she had to forcibly extract his hand from behind his back to do it).

"You go on. Have some fun."

"I can't take your money, Miss Two Trees." Clint objected, trying to push it back.

"You take! Go have fun. Pay me back when you can. That is all. Now go."

Elsa Two Trees rushed away to the first scene-of-the-crime. Clint's mattress was on the floor. The rough box spring remained the only thing containing the sheet he used for a blanket and the bundle of clothes wrapped in a pillowcase. After the first few days of putting the mattress back again, again, and again she gave up and left it on the floor. She just cleaned around it.

Clint stood in the doorway with his heart full of guilt. Half of him wanted to take off now while he still had the chance, but watching Elsa trying to put back together the ruin his life created caused him more than a short pause. He looked at the money in his hand, and half stepped forward to do something to help her.

"Oh, get out of here before I _do_ put you to work." Elsa said. She looked up from arranging the sheet on his bed. She was still smiling. "Besides, I need you out so I can do a better job. Go on!"

Clint made a mental note to buy the woman some flowers or chocolates or something a chick would like. With cash in hand, he shot down the hallway, his escape plan one step closer to completion. Now all he had to do was convince JARVIS to let him onto the roof. He took Tony's private elevator up, pretending that all he planned to do was take a dip in the pool for his physical therapy's sake.

Initially he hadn't really thought of how he planned to get down once he was on the roof. Climbing seemed like a last resort. Another option was to stick out his thumb and try to hitch a ride on the closest slow moving chopper. At least four went by every few minutes on hero-searches. The Avengers were Manhattan's hottest celebrities. Six more-than-fit guys and one all-too alluring woman was all anyone needed to pay a thousand dollars for a Stark Tower helicopter tour. Well, Clint would give them something to wave for at least.

He jumped on the building ledge overlooking the iconic _Stark_ sign and weighed his options. He briefly considered giving Thor a buzz for piggy-back ride. As far as being judgmental, Thor wasn't. If Clint wanted to throw himself in front of a moving train Thor would probably ride shot gun with the conductor. It was impossible to know if the others had tainted him already with the all-out search for Clint, though.

"Elsa said you were up here—"

If Barton had _any_ idea someone could get the drop on him, he probably wouldn't have perched himself so close to the edge of the building. The minute he heard his name, he jumped sky high and teetered for balance on the two inches of space afforded to him on the building's roof.

"Oh-my-gosh!" Pepper rushed forward to grab the back of his shirt, but tripped halfway and pushed him rather than helped him. Clint twisted like a cat in mid-air, grabbing whatever handhold he could find to stop his thrust over the side of the building. Unfortunately, the hold he found ended up being Pepper's offered hand. Pepper flew forward as the two of them fell.

"Crap, crap, crap**_. CRAP_**!" Clint grabbed for the arrows that he knew were not there. Steve had yet to decide he deserved them back. That meant no grappling lines, no percussions bombs, nothing at all.

Well, nothing besides Pepper.

Clint leaned sideways, pulling at her arm until she angled close enough to him for Clint to pull her into an embrace. She screamed, which was a natural response to falling through the air with no hope of escape but to do one massive splat another forty stories down.

_This would be a good time for one of the flying members of this team to come and save us_! Clint had a moment to think as he watched the ground rushing up at them.

For some reason he wasn't worried, even with Pepper screaming bloody murder in his ears. Maybe it was just the internal bleeding, or the fact that this was the most interesting thing to happen in the last month besides a plane crash. If Pepper wasn't there, he may actually have enjoyed the fresh air.

He expected the sudden jarring stop, but that didn't mean it didn't still hurt. Afterward came the plate glass window, the rolling stop, the desk, a computer screen thrown off a shelf, and part of a wall crushed inward that aided to their break down their speed. All in all, suddenly much less fun then he planned.

"Holy Crap, what the Hell were you thinking? I heard some woman screaming, and JARVIS barely had the time to get my thrusters out before you took a concrete nap."

Hawkeye didn't have to clear the drywall dust out of his eyes to know it was Tony.

"Glad Pepper made a racket then."

Tony grinned. "It was not Miss Potts to whom I was referring."

Clint pointed a finger at him as if it was loaded. "Hey, keep picking on me and I will shove an arrow up you're a—"

"Be nice."

"Loved the whole throw the guy through a wall idea. Really affective. Where's Pepper?"

"What did you—why did you pull me over?" Pepper struggled to her feet. Her heels were missing and the two-piece suit was now more like five. At least she didn't seem physically harmed. Tony had made certain that Clint received the brunt of that landing.

"Didn't mean to. Just sort of happened. I didn't realize your feet weren't exactly planted. And besides, you snuck up on me!" Clint replied.

"You like some assassin double-0-something! I thought you could hear like mice tapping in walls or dogs barking three blocks away or something!" Pepper screamed, but both could tell she really wasn't mad. She was never mad when it came to Agent Barton. Tony couldn't quite figure out why that was, but he made it his secret mission to uncover the reason.

"Yeah, well, I'm called Hawkeye, not Elephant Ear, I'm not exactly up to snuff lately if you noticed. And if that admission leaves this present company I will throw both of you back out that window." Clint warned. He pushed himself up and brushed off his pant legs. "How far up are we?"

"Second floor." Tony answered.

Pepper sat on a vacant office desk and willed herself to stop shaking. Stark noticed her instantly and moved to do the gentlemanly thing and hold her, even if he was nothing but a metal tin can. She accepted the embrace willingly and suddenly the scene changed into Clint being the third wheel of a private moment. The changed bothered him little. He planned to leave and that plan did not change.

"Hey, wait, where are you going?" Pepper pushed away from Stark to follow after the retreating archer. He was already to the busted window, sizing up where he would have to climb to get to the ground level.

"Same as before, I need air. I'm going to get some. Stop me if you want but the minute I come to, I'm going to try it again." Clint said over his shoulder. He looked down to find a happy awning just waiting for him to smash through.

_Perfect_.

"Hey, whoa! You aren't going any place. I don't know if you missed that part during your little laughing gas happy time, but we all decided that you shouldn't be pushing yourself." Tony argued all the way, but Clint noticed at once he didn't try to stop him either.

"I've been on bed rest. I've been on so much bed rest I feel like Banner's going to start ordering me bed sore creams. I mean, you just called in a doctor who got his Ph'D in the 1930s to look at my ultrasound."

"I value is crazy, insightful, magic-y opinion."

Pepper blinked at them, apparently overcoming her intense shock. "Wait, what's going on? Is Clint ok?"

"Honey, talk to your son, he's being unruly again." Tony ordered.

Clint stepped out onto the ledge.

"Clint, wait!"

The assassin paused. Pepper's hand touched his arm in a stunning recreation of what had gotten them in so much trouble not long ago. But he waited for Pepper. He owed it to her. When he was down and out, and his mind overcome with all the horrid things his nightmares could throw at him, Pepper sat by him. Her hands combed through his hair as she told him everything would be all right. She was the kindest person he'd ever met. In some ways she reminded him of the memories of his mother, the same ones he spent so much of his life trying to burry.

"Are you ok?" She asked. Her eyes were pleading for the truth. How could he ever resist them?

He sighed. "Look, I'll be fine. I feel fine. I just need to get out of here before I lose my mind. I'll stick around the hospital, ok? Just in case." His eyes looked to Tony. "Come on, you _promised_ not to give me a hard time."

"Sure I did, but when we had that little discussion about taking bullets for each other, I don't think the undertone was that one of us would be the shooter either." Stark retorted.

"Tony goes with you."

Both Clint and Stark focused on Pepper, their surprise readily apparent.

"That's the deal. You can go, but he has to go too. To keep an eye on you."

Clint moved to object, but she interrupted him before he could get the words out.

"No, not like that. I'm not sending him to be your guard dog, he's your friend. The two of you get into enough trouble as it is, but you always come out of it ok. As long as you're together. And here," Pepper pulled her cell phone out and handed it over. "If you see Stark Industries' inside number calling, you answer it! I don't care if you're drunk or half dead or in surgery. You answer it! Understand?"

Clint looked at the cell for a moment, but took it. He nodded his head understandingly. "Yeah, sure, Pepper."

"Do you have cash?" She asked.

Clint bit the inside of his lip. He didn't want to say that the cleaning lady had spotted him thirty bucks, but then again Pepper probably already knew that.

"Yeah," he said after a moment. "I'm good."

"Tony, get out of that thing and go have a good time." Pepper ordered. Tony didn't even give a witty retort. Up he went, blasting through the open window and to the top of the Stark Tower.

"Hey, Miss Potts?" Clint said as she fell into a chair again.

"Yes, Agent Barton?" Tired eyes looked at him. Clearly living with Iron Man and his crazy house mates took a toll on her.

"Thanks."


	5. Free at Last

**Titanium Hawkeye**

**Chapter 4 Free at Last**

They started out their trip through town (and as far away from Stark Tower as they could get) by hiring a cab. It took fourteen of them rolling by before Tony was satisfied the Cash Cab was nowhere in the vicinity and painstakingly got in beside Clint. From Columbus Circle through Times Square they climbed in and out of nearly twenty three different yellow cars. Firstly neither could decide what they wanted to do with their new found freedom away from the responsibility of avenging. Secondly, no one recognized the great Tony Stark in any of the local dive bars and that simply was not good enough for him. Thirdly: it was still only ten-o-clock in the morning and said bars were full of only cleaning staff.

"You wanna stop at the hospital first then? We've got thirteen hours to kill before anything good opens." Stark asked.

"No." Clint replied flatly.

"You like the Yankees?"

"I hate the Yankees."

"Like the Phillies?"

Clint looked over at Stark, as if trying to figure out where the question sprouted from. He occasionally forgot that the billionaire was now a trusted ally and not another psychoanalyst paid to be his friend. As far as he knew, nothing shady existed between them which took some getting used to.

"Actually, I do like the Phillies."

"Good. Then you can cheer the Phillies, I can cheer the Yankees, and whoever is alive by the end of the innings buys the first beer."

Clint smiled. It wasn't a bad idea. A good baseball game could last three or four hours. A Saturday afternoon game would start around noon, just enough time for them to get through traffic and into the stadium.

"And I'm guessing you just happened to have Yankees tickets lying around?"

Tony pulled them out of his back pocket. "Sure do. I pretended to be a Boy Scout once. Always be prepared."

The game lasted until seven-o-clock that night. After fifteen innings, the Yankees blew an easy fly ball and made it a four-run win for the Phillies. Clint stood and shouted like a fool while Tony cursed every Yankee out by name. They relaxed in the winner's club for a round of drinks on Clint (or Elsa Sanchez) and caught a cab out of the stadium.

They circled the city three or four times, drinking a couple beers they picked up along the way and stopping occasionally to solicit chicks just for the Hell of it. Clint forcibly dragged Stark back into the cab when one particularly gaudy looking lady of the night recognized the Iron Man in disguise and decided to offer him a freebie. Clint pointed out the hooker was actually a man, and suddenly Stark felt less inclined to mess with the minds of the women thumbing for a ride on the side of the highway.

Fun game number two over, their night out swiftly took a turn for a bust. The cab driver suggested one of his favorite clubs. With nothing better to go on, Clint and Tony agreed, rolling into a hopping dance club between Times Square and Central Park. The sign out front read **_Therapy_** and it was the perfect scene.

Until they realized it was a gay bar . . . And those go-go dancers were decidedly not women even though they looked incredibly close. And the lady feeling up Clint's back looked remarkably like the hooker he pulled Tony away from half an hour before. When they finally did escape with their lives (and two wigs, a pair of silver dazzling pumps, and matching handbag) they decided not to return to the same cab driver.

Dinner was courtesy of Gordon Ramsey at The London, a little favor returned for Stark sending a favorite energy consultant by to reroute some of the more energy-consuming kitchen appliances to a separate solar grid. The fact that the consultant was the only seven foot d-cup blond in all of New York working in that field may have helped grease the Maitre de just a tad. On a tip from local wait staff, the club to be at wasn't hard to find. Clint took the initiative of guiding that half of the venture and before long they were sitting beside each other at a table in the Greenhouse.

"This was an awesome idea." Clint said.

"I told you it would be."

"As I recall, you said it was stupid, idiotic, and not befitting a man of your social status."

"And as I recall you fell off a roof, bewitched my girlfriend, swindled my cleaning lady, are carrying around heels that do not belong to you and are ignoring doctor's orders."

"You are carrying the matching handbag full of two stylish wigs."

"You tried the wig on."

"With you."

"And the heels."

"They didn't fit, so I gave them to you."

"And they fit marvelously. So who's the idiot here?"

"You are."

"Did I leave myself open for that?"

"Yes you did."

Tony threw his arms up. There was no way he was going to win the debate no matter how hard he tried. So instead he focused his energy on something he could win at: the who-could-get-drunker-faster contest. So far Tony was ahead by three shots of Jack and one tankard of beer, but Clint pretended to catch up with his liver-killing Blue Motorcycles. Quality over quantity was the name of Barton's game though it became obvious the longer they were out Clint never drank enough to cross that edge of losing control. Tony noted it, but said nothing.

The night was still young, the music just beginning to start up and the crowed there for a quick after-hours drink replaced with the ones looking for a good time.

"Besides, I didn't swindle Sanchez, she was polite and it was a loan." Barton felt the need to point out.

"Semantics." Tony said, unconvinced. "Besides, if you needed your wallet why didn't you just say so? I would've had someone drop it by, or asked Thor to get it. Wouldn't have taken more than an hour tops."

Clint watched the people shuffling in and out, the DJ getting his nightlife gear set and ready, and he milled about Tony's question.

"I don't know. I'm not used to relying on other people for that, you know? If I couldn't just go out and do it myself, what was the point of asking someone else?"

"Well duh, Squawk-Head, we're a team. We're supposed to do stupid stuff for each other. Anything else you left in your (I have to say it) rather sparse room you want? Say the word and its here." Tony had a way of making everything he said seem like no big deal. If he was being asked to move the Empire State Building three feet to the left he'd just shrug and say "yeah, I moved it" and the conversation would drop. It wasn't as easy as Stark made it out to be, it never was. But it felt good that the guy tried to put him at ease.

"Passport be nice too if you're offering." Clint replied.

"Planning on a long trip?" Tony asked.

"Always like the option."

"Oh, like spies will just flash their passport all over the place and you get unlimited access, that how it works?"

Clint chuckled. He sipped his first Blue Motorcycle and rode it slow. "That reminds me. I have seven passports. Make sure you don't forget any of them."

As the music began to start and a few of the already drunk patrons started to spread out across the dance floor, the two of them were interrupted by a phone going off. It took a few moments of Stark fishing in his pocket, only to realize he wasn't ringing. Clint suddenly remembered Pepper's phone and hurriedly grabbed it before he missed the call.

"Barton." He answered.

"_Hello, I'm just checking up on you really quick to make sure everything's ok. I'm not like checking up, checking up, I just want to make sure you are all OK and not getting into trouble or something…"_ Pepper's voice came over the speaker.

"Hi, Pepper-my-darling." Tony shouted across the table.

"We're doing all right." Clint answered, then held his hand to the receiver and said, "She says hi, Tony."

Stark grinned and took a shot.

"_Are you at a club?"_

"Yeah, the Greenhouse. And I'll be honest. I don't know what kind of shape I'll be bringing Tony back in if he wins our drinking contest." Clint told her.

For a moment Pepper's voice sounded a little muffled. She yelled at someone, but not at the two over the phone. Something crashed. Someone laughed a _loud_, _booming_ laugh followed by a crack of thunder and Pepper was back on the line in a more hurried tone.

"_Oh, I'm sorry! I didn't mean for him to hear! I thought he was in the other room!"_

Clint stood, suddenly worried for her. Feeling his change in body language Tony got up beside him and drew in close to listen.

"Is everything all right? What happened? Pepper, just calm down for a second and stop apologizing. Tell me what's wrong!" Clint demanded. Tony's hands had curled into fists.

"_He was just standing there and I didn't know it! I'm sure he'll be there any minute, I'm sorry! I don't think you have time to leave before they get there!"_

"**WHO **gets here?" Clint roared.

The club door opened with a blast of cool air. The closest patrons stumbled back in shock. The room lights dimmed and flickered back to life as an electric current shot across the room. When the dust settled, the lights flicked on, and the room calmed at last, Clint finally realized what Pepper was trying to tell him.

"_It's the Captain Rogers and Thor. They're coming to get you_!"


	6. Man Pact

**Titanium Hawkeye**

**_Chapter 5: Man Pact_**

"Well if you aren't leaving, then we're staying and that's the end of it." Steve Rogers declared

"If you're staying, we're leaving!" Tony growled back.

"This place is amazing! I find it very agreeable if all of us remain for a spell and refresh ourselves of the delicacies." Thor proclaimed.

He dropped his hammer on the bar and motioned around the room to the people eyeing him with trepidation; as if at any moment he may burst into flames. Since the attention was on him, he continued with his speech. Grabbing the closest tankard off the bar, he hoisted it high over his head.

"I declare a night of revelry and festivities. We shall celebrate the life of this great realm! Drink and love, my friends, for tonight we make merry!"

There were cheers as the DJ scratched a disk to life and started the speakers pumping. A bachelorette party bound on making the most of the bride's last night of freedom dragged a willing Thor to the dance floor. From across the room, Thor waved down his friends for them to join his fun. The focus of the room now took in the full sight of what had transpired.

The Avengers were in the house.

The Captain looked over at Stark and Clint.

"Are you two still heading for the hills? Cause I think you might have a wagon train following you out."

Tony gave an angry grunt and fell back into his seat. Steve took that as an invitation to sit. Three screaming girls took up residence behind him. None were brave enough to venture closer, so they stood there screaming his name at each other. A few club bouncers appeared out of nowhere and succeeded in keeping the increasing number of hero fan girls at bay. One of the body guards did a back-handed slip and placed a Team Avenger trading card on the table in front of Steve Rogers. Beside it came a sharpie. Without question Steve signed it and left the card on the table where it disappeared three seconds later.

"So," Clint said as the awkward moment continued to climb in intensity. "Feel like playing a drinking game with us, Captain?"

"Wouldn't be fair. But thanks for the offer." Steve replied, also ignoring the roaring Avengers chant (started by Thor).

Clint shrugged and nursed his drink even slower. If the other two were crashing his party, he suddenly felt like having more of his wits about him.

"It was less of an offer, more of a plea." Tony added for Clint. "Please, don't make me beg for you to loosen up those military jodhpurs and cut us a little slack tonight."

Tony flew forward a little as a busty broad attached herself to the back of his chair. As he turned to look at what happened he saw the handwritten "I love Tony Stark" note drawn across her forehead . . . backwards. Obviously she had done it in a mirror. He had to give an A for _Attempt_ at success and E for _Epic_ fail. A marker poked out of the center of her bra, waiting for him to pluck it out and scribble his name wherever he wanted to touch her.

Without being asked, Clint reached over, pulled out the marker, popped the cap, wrapped it in a napkin and handed it to Stark. With a grateful smile to his friend, Tony rewrote her saying correctly. Clint took the marker back. He capped it and replaced it in the woman's bra before the bouncers carted her off.

About three seconds later a pair of panties flew over Tony's head and hit the table between them. It was rather obvious who they were intended for, the Captain America shield over a field of blue couldn't be missed.

Clint grinned and looked at the captain. "I aint touching those."

Tony snapped his fingers and a bouncer was a little too eager to turn around and steal the panties off the table. They disappeared into his pocket. It was better just letting it go and moving on.

While situation transpired, Steve sat back and observed in the way that he had been trained. His memory went back to all those little encounters he caught between Stark and Clint. It started when Clint sneaked into Tony and Pepper's bedroom. No . . . actually when Steve thought about it the bond started before that. When Clint was on the Heli-carrier all Tony cared about was getting the guy off, out of medical, and back to someplace that felt like home to them both. Now they even had a silent understanding, a nonverbal communication where one could do something for the other without ever saying the question out loud. They didn't spend that much time together in the Tower, so what was it? Steve kept the curiosity in the back of his mind.

"So," he tried to make meager conversation, "How are you doing Clint?"

Both Tony and Clint froze. They starred at the Captain.

"What? I just asked how you're feeling. What with all the—"

Tony stopped him dead. His voice was sharp, a warning. "Don't. Drop it. Clint's fine. If he wasn't, he'd say it. Don't ask again."

The Captain nodded, his wonder mounting by the second. "Ok, sure. I won't."

Without anyone else noticing, Clint's foot kicked against Tony's. The billionaire kicked back and that was all. They had said their _thank you_ and _you're welcome_.

"Did you miss us? Sheesh, Captain if I knew you cared I would have dragged you out with us. You missed a Hell of a good time." Clint asked to fill the conversation void.

"I'm sure I did. It frightens me to know how much I may have missed." He replied.

Tony launched out of his chair. He grabbed the only full drink left on the table, which happened to belong to Clint, and thrust it into the air. "We need a man pact. Right here. If this is going to turn into a recreation of The Hangover, we need a total man pact. Thor!"

The Asgardian was shaking his Norse hind end all over the dance floor in the most erratic array of mythical dancing they had ever seen. At the sound of his name he dropped all gyrations and went running to the group. For as long as he spent on the dance floor, the guy wasn't even breaking a sweat.

"My friends?" Thor asked.

"Man pact." Tony said by way of explanation. "We all solemnly swear that none of our women, including my Pepper Potts and Clint's Natasha Romanov—"

"Natasha's not mine."

"And my Jane Foster." Thor added.

The three others looked at each other with curiosity behind their eyes. This was the first most had ever heard of Jane Foster, save for Clint who had a faded memory of a girl coming into the army base one day in Tahoe to break the big guy out.

"I'll drink to that. And really, I don't get why you're tying Tasha into this. We're partners, that's it." Clint said, grabbing his glass back from Tony as Clint and Steve both stood.

Maybe one time they could have been considered together, but not anymore. The events of the last months proved that. If Natasha cared anything for him, she would have been there, stood with him, helped him through it. Instead she reduced herself to following him around and handing him his coffee and meds. He didn't need a full time nurse. He needed Natasha. If she wasn't willing to be that ever again, then he might as well enjoy himself and drink her away.

Tony ignored Clint and spoke to Steve. "Isn't cute nowadays how they say partners instead of lovers?"

Steve looked bewildered but he wasn't about to get tied up in that conversation.

They all drank to the toast regardless, first Clint and then Tony who took the glass from him. After all, the remains of the vodka/tequila mix was the only the alcohol left on the table. Tony shoved it at Thor who took a hefty swig, leaving a quarter of the glass for their Captain. Steve looked at the contents for a moment, weighing the benefits of some group bonding over his inability to enjoy alcohol. More than likely he'd be playing mother hen later, rounding up the men before him and ferrying them home like a good CO would. What was one night of babysitting? In the scheme of things, maybe he'd get to know Clint a little better.

Tossing back his head, Steve Rogers did the unthinkable and downed the entire remaining contents in a single long gulp. After his mouth seized up like a fiery vice and his eyes did a 360 around his sockets, the room again cleared.

"What was that?" He spat out, looking at the glass as if it were poisoned.

"Not bad, Cap. Not many guys can take vodka and tequila that hard. Wanna go for another?" Clint congratulated. He looked genuinely pleased

Steve weighed in that little piece of his mind the cost/benefit analysis of Clint's proposed challenge. If this was what the archer was drinking, then that was one way to get closer to him.

"How many have you done?" Steve asked.

"Be two and a half about." Clint didn't want to mention that he hadn't even finished the first. So he lied.

"Line them up. I've got some catching up to do."

Tony gave a holler for joy as he slapped Thor on the back with his casted arm. Their night out suddenly took a spin for the better and Stark was as excited as a teenager to get the Captain to prove his worth in the real world.

"Come on, Thunder Pants, we got drinks to cart over!" Tony shouted over the increasing noise of the club picking up tempo. The billionaire and Thor broke through the circle of bodyguards and headed for the bar. Not even halfway they were swallowed by the hero hunters and the two let themselves be dragged to the dance floor.

Clint and Steve sat across the table from each other and watched as the not-so-bad a dancer Tony Stark cut himself a sizeable piece of real estate in the center of the dance floor. With Thor at his back attending four women at once and Tony dancing with an invisible three foot barrier between him and the nearest other non-Asgardian, they made an interesting sight to behold.

"So much for those drinks." Clint said, though a grin still played on his lips.

It made him uncomfortable being left alone with Rogers. Sure the guy was pretty much the leader of their team, the one responsible for keeping everyone safe and looking out for their best interests, but Clint was never very good about following orders. Then his thoughts went to Coulson and the feeling of discomfort expounded.

"I'm sure they'll be around." Steve said. "Much liquor as Stark's got in him right now I doubt he'll be getting through two dances. Although it would be something to see him toss chunks on the dance floor."

Those words cut right through Clint's disconcertion and made him chuckle. "Yeah, you know, I would like to see that. I should have gotten him more drunk."

"I kinda wish you did now too." Steve added.

Silence fell between them again. They both went fishing for something, anything to fill the uncomfortable void left between them by Tony not throwing out conversation topics. Each one tried for a word, and then stopped halfway when they thought it might sound strange or wrong somehow. Clint became increasingly frustrated with himself. This was something he was supposed to be good at. Although usually he lulled people into a false sense of security before he cut their legs out from under them, but still. He should be able to at least keep a civil conversation with the guy. Then that gave him an idea in itself.

"Ah, Hell. I might as well just say it." Clint said. He sucked in a breath and out came the admittance. "You know, I was there."

Steve had a questioning look.

The archer still watched the dancers and for a few moments didn't say anymore. And then he started up again, as if nothing had stopped him in the first place.

"When they thawed you out. I was on guard detail. Coulson and me. He was crazy about you. Got me on special duty rotation. I even went on Ebay for his birthday and got those stupid cards of his. The Captain America ones. Them and season Two of Super Nanny."

Clint chuckled a little, light illuminating the perpetual gloom over his face. "He was over-the-moon. Thought he'd pass out or something. Course that wasn't long before he had to pull me out of Afghanistan. You know what I was doing there?"

At this point the archer turned away from the dance floor and looked straight at the Captain. It was then Steve realized he wasn't looking at anyone, not really. The whole time he was someplace far away. Reliving a memory that was hard to get a hold of. In lue of all the presant revelations Steve was gracious to be at all part of, he could only imagine the most obvious answer. Clint must have been sent to the war. Sniper/scout/ all in one he was probably a key asset to his commanding officers.

The question hung in the air between them until at last Steve felt compelled to ask what Clint had been in Afghanistan for. Steve doubted Clint would have even continued speaking without Steve's help, even if the Captain could easily guess the next answer.

"I was looking for Tony Stark."

The Captain guessed wrong.


	7. Phil Coulson

**Chapter 6  
**

**_Phil Coulson_**

Steve sat up a little straighter and bent himself forward over the table to hear better over the now buzzing thrum of the speakers. He must have heard Clint Barton wrong. He found it difficult to believe that the archer sitting unassumingly across from him was somehow connected to the other members of the Avengers.

After dropping the bombshell, Clint seemed to realize he'd revealed an intimate detail from his life and clammed up. His attention turned away, his shoulders tensed, and he reached for his drink but left it untouched in his hand.

"Why were you looking for Tony?" Steve prodded.

Clint shrugged. He played with the neck of one of Tony's discarded beers, looking at the bottom occasionally as if willing some liquid courage to appear back in it. Some part of Clint's mind kept him from looking too close at the glass reflection of his face. The horrific scar he had yet to see, the phantom look of Loki hiding behind his eyes, the heavy lines over his brow from stress . . . all of them he'd avoided for so long. The thought of finally encountering them made him shiver.

He wasn't exactly sure why he decided to speak so plainly with the captain. Maybe he drank more than he estimated.

"I was just barely allowed out in the field on my own recognizance. SHIELD seemed to think I had an issue with listening to command. Which was true, unless that command came from Coulson. He was realistic. He knew how the world worked and didn't issue idiotic orders that couldn't be followed. And he eliminated a lot of my red-tape issues. I'd been in the war for a while with this group or that. Coulson recruited me before then but became my handler again after all the others quit. Even Agent Hill tried to take me on for a while, but that lasted maybe three weeks before she gave up. SHIELD almost scrubbed me out too, but Coulson, he just made sense when no one else did.

"Coulson knew I had a talent for tracking people down. Most of my assignments included that as the predominant skill. I'm quiet. I can get in and out. You can pull an arrow out of a target easier than a bullet when you need to cover tracks. So when Stark got captured in Afghanistan, Phil asked for me to get on the case. Director Fury agreed. Have you ever been to Afghanistan?"

Steve shook his head. "No."

"Well for one thing, their Shwarma is better." Clint's joke had them both chuckling for a little bit.

Again Clint had stopped, unable or unwilling to keep talking without being asked to. Steve had a feeling there was something Clint wanted to get off his chest. If the captain held his patience long enough he may just figure out what secret he had.

"But I know Tony got himself out." Steve added.

"Yeah, I was about twenty-five hundred miles away at the time. Another SHIELD team I worked with stayed with the Afghanis and Rhodes searching through the hills. That team's helicopter took him out of the desert. Don't tell him. I think it'd hurt his feelings.

"Instead of staying with my team, Coulson rushed me to Budapest by express mail. Tasha had . . ." Clint's voice trailed. Despite the blast of music, the sway of bodies, and the general blissful attitude of the club goers, Steve had the distinct notion that Clint was somewhere else. He gazed into the past, nearly two years prior.

Before Steve could attempt another prompting, a shot girl swung around to their table with a tray of delicacies fit for the Avengers. Apparently Stark attempted to open a tab, but according to the owner, all drinks were free for Avengers. Having the A-listers was good for business and even with the early clubbing hour the place had been packed to the gills.

Clint ordered a beer, planning to keep it light for a little while at least. He didn't like to get drunk. He'd seen men in his family when they lost that control to alcohol and he vowed to never become that.

True to his word, the Captain ordered exactly two and a half glasses of Blue Motorcycles. Clint knew it wouldn't even touch him but the gesture made him smile.

When the barista had gone and returned with the order, Clint and Steve were already reengaged in their conversation. So much so, they hardly even noticed the girl's approach at all.

Clint took the long neck of his beer but set it on the table between his hands without sipping it. "Tasha thinks Budapest was the greatest fun of her life. From her perspective, she could be right. She took a contract to kill the new Egyptian president. Been a lot of trouble in that little speck of the world and getting rid of him would have thrown half the Middle East into a tailspin. SHIELD heard she'd gone off the radar, taken a job from her old spy group, and Fury sent me in to, well, take care of the situation."

"Scrub out policy?" Steve guessed at the words he'd often heard in whispers around SHIELD HQ.

"_If an agent defies orders which leads to the deaf or disfigurement of another agent or persons under SHIELD protection, if an agent defects and the reason of their defection is to share private data regarding SHIELD personnel, or if an agent is unable to fulfill his or her duties due to extreme injury with no hope of recovery, SHIELD Operations reserves the right to eliminate the potential threat by any means necessary_." Barton quoted from memory. He took a sip of his drink and set it back down in the ring of moisture. "Agents call it "scrubbing out". It's a nicer way to say that your friends are commissioned to murder you in your sleep if SHIELD determines your risk out ways your benefit. I think of it like my retirement policy. If I get too old, or I can't do my job, then I know some new Operations grunt will come up behind me one day and put two in the back of my head."

"And Fury ordered you to scrub out Natasha."

"He did."

"But you refused."

"I made a different call."

Steve drank another quarter of his blue tequila in a single shot. It felt like death every time, but it was obviously earning him some respect in Clint's eyes. The next time maybe he'd try a half and see where that got him.

Clint considered about stopping there. Before the Avengers, he had Coulson who held more intimate details about Clint's past than the archer ever imagined. His CO knew about Stark, and Steve, and Budapest, even Thor. He knew about Clint's fears, what drove him to sleep on the floor, or made him perch in a nest. Phil knew everything that made his agent's tick and without Phil around Clint felt like keeping others from getting close to him the same way. Especially Fury. It was sure as the sun melted men's boots that the one-eyed sadist cared little to none about personal lives. All that mattered was the mission and its success. As long as those two things happened everyone was good.

But Clint wasn't. He'd never been a team player, but the Avengers were different. Cap took time to give him space, never pressured him unless he did something contradictory to his health, and even now when he vibrated for the latest Hawkeye gossip he looked impassive.

"I don't even know why I'm saying this." Clint admitted. He slammed his beer down, pushing it away in frustration. "It'd be so much easier if he was here, you know? Everything would be easier. I wouldn't have psych on my case, or Tony dragging me to bars. I wouldn't have to fall eighty stories to get a night out or get gassed in R n D. It sucks, you know that? It just sucks!"

And then, it all made sense.

Steve realized they were talking less and less about the things Clint had done and more about the things Coulson did. Coulson recruited him, got him into the war, sent him to Budapest, protected him, guided him, and took care of the red tape that so often found its way wrapped around Clint's life. Coulson probably even found Clint in that circus from his youth and made a real soldier out of him. Now that figure was dead. Clint couldn't even bring himself to go to the funeral. He was such a wreck at the time just after Loki's possession. SHIELD medical worked on him for a while right after the attack on New York. When he came out of it he was better, different in some ways from the man that stood beside him in the attack, but more stable.

Steve broke the news to him. The last conversation they had, the last one that really mattered, was Steve telling Clint that Phil died. He remembered the moment with all the clarity of a cinema.

Clint leaned in the doorway to his bunk, looking in as if to see something or someone that wasn't there. He was confused, hurting, and felt the weight of an armada's worth of evil glares bearing against him. Steve walked by on the way to clear some debris from the hanger. He didn't expect to run into Clint, who turned around so suddenly and blurted the question out.

_"Where's Phil? Phil is always there, always waiting to debrief me. He isn't in medical. He isn't in the psycho ward. He didn't even fly in with Lola. Where the Hell is he?!" _

_"Coulson?" Steve had said, surprised. "But, he's dead. Didn't anyone tell you?"_

It was simple, cold, uncalculated, and an off handed statement ending the life of Clint's virtual father-figure. Right now, Steve felt like shoving a boot in his own mouth. That rift divided them and kept Steve at a distance when everyone else grew closer to their ace archer. Rogers was the bad news bringer. When Clint saw Steve, all he saw was Coulson lying dead in the morgue.

"I'm sorry, Clint." Steve said. "I had no idea. I know how much my C/O meant to me. And when I found out he was gone, I . . ." Steve's eyes were focused downward and into his glass. Now he did need that half a glass chug. He swallowed it in two quick drags. "Let's just say I didn't come out of the gym for a little while. And no one else was able to go in for about six months."

Clint quirked up a corner of his mouth. "_What_ gym, right?"

Steve nodded. "Look, I never want to take his place. Don't look for me to. But he got you and Natasha partnered up."

Clint didn't reply.

"Why did she decide against killing the Egyptian president?" Steve slid his empty glass away and grabbed the next one. He longed to change topics, as much for Clint as for himself.

"She had something better to do."

"Like what?"

Clint grinned a little mischievously. His hands were around his beer bottle. Unconsciously he started picking at his fingernails. Steve had already seen this a few times, he wrote it off as a nervous tick. Something Clint just did and never knew or thought about. Tony for instance liked to bounce his knee. Thor had the same problem, but when he did it the entire apartment tended to shake. Thankfully Banner didn't have many nervous ticks, besides turning into a big green rage monster.

"Natasha had better things to do than get tied up in politics. After all, I got in her way at the assassination attempt. Can you believe she actually shot me? And enjoyed it? God, she was a little witch back then. It only winged me, but it was enough I couldn't shoot her back. By then we were well acquainted. First she worked with Red Room and the KGB. I didn't and that made us enemies until she defected. Then we were partners. Typically if an agents needs to be taken out, then their partner is the last one you send in. This time, Phil went to bat for me and Fury gave me the assignment. She saw the opportunity to take me out, and she took it. Can't say I blame her."

"You would have done the same thing." Steve commented.

"Oh yeah. Under Loki that's exactly what I did. The difference between Natasha and me is I'm nice to my captives for the most part. Fury—" Clint stopped picking at his nails long enough to hold his hand up between them and wobbled it up and down. "Fury, he's half and half on the whole torture thing. Nat, Hell, she had me for three days of agony. Shot in the shoulder that I could deal with. But when she had this little woman she grew up with in the Red Room come in and do the whole bamboo fingernail treatment with . . ." Clint stopped. He couldn't even say the word without his skin crawling all over.

Steve wasn't an idiot. He'd already put the pieces together. Syringes. For three days Natasha Romanov watched Clint Barton develop his greatest fear before her very eyes. If he tried, Steve could just barely see them. The pinhead sized scars dotting across Clint's hands. Normally obscured by his gloves or his finger tabs, the scars were too numerous to count. Finger tips were everything to an archer. Shoving needles through them was not exactly conducive to a good sportsman.

"And you looked past all that? Everything? How'd you even get out?"

"I knew she must have liked me. First off, I never gave her crap about Stark's location which made her mad. She should have just killed me. After the first twelve hours, I figured she was done. Then thirty-six hours in, I was still alive. Half dead, but alive. I knew I had her then. If I could just talk her back to her SHIELD days, then I could get my Natasha back. It helped that the other Red Room operative left enough glass and metal in me to cut my ropes. It took hours to pull enough out to use my fingers. When I did get free, it was her and me. She had no chance. As much of a weapon as she is, there's only so many ways to get out of a guy holding a hunk of glass to your carotid artery. I knew it just as well as she did."

"But you didn't kill her."

Clint shook his head. "Could have, but didn't. We had history. I knew she wanted out. I could tell. I just gave her the means, the way Coulson gave it to me."

Steve drank a little more, milled the story around in his head, and then asked what had been bothering him along the way. "So, let me ask this, then. When Romanov says she's got Red in her Ledger, that's not the fact that you gave her a chance. That you saved her. It's because of what she did to you. She feels guilty and she's trying to repay you for it. Am I right?"

Clint thought about it, but ended up with no good answer in his mind. "Honestly, you'd have to ask her."

"What happened to the woman Natasha worked with?"

"I don't know. Natasha never wanted to bring her in."

_"Captain America_! Oh, Captain America, please, it's Beth, do you remember me? You saved me at the bank, you were so amazing!"

Steve, hearing the name of his alter-ego looked away from his partner and into the crowd of still-swarming ladies. In fact, the one calling his name he did recognize. Not because of the battle in the city, but the news coverage afterward. She looked different not covered in blood and concrete rubble, but he was good at remembering faces.

"Beth?" Steve asked, trying the name out on his lips.

The woman looked like she was going to pass out when her name came from his lips. "That's right. Do you remember me? You were so amazing. Really, you were so courageous!"

Steve flashed her the all-American boy smile and thanked her for supporting him. But Clint wasn't about to leave their reunion at that. In fact, there were a few hero-worshipers out there clawing to get a piece of Clint as well even if he wasn't more high-profile like the others. It made him feel a little important to be wanted. So he made a choice for the both of them. Sitting on the side lines was over. Tony and Thor were having enough fun for everyone but that didn't mean Clint had to sit back and be a wallflower all night.

"Come on, Cap, let's go cut some rug." Clint said. He pushed himself to his feet, one hand rubbed the spot where his liver was still miffed about the ill treatment of too many alcoholic beverages compounding his healing wounds.

Steve shot out a hand to keep Clint steady, concern marred his face and he couldn't stop himself from asking if the archer was all right.

Clint waved it off. "Look, if it was serious, I'd probably be dead by now. Besides, I'm only a little pale. The pain I hardly notice at all. Let me get stupid drunk, dance with a few girls, and then you can take me home. I promise."

"I'll hold you to that."

"I said stupid drunk, ok? If I remember tonight, then it's not drunk enough and it doesn't count."

In response Steve picked up Clint's beer off the table. He handed it to the archer as they broke the line of enforcers and headed for the dance floor. The faster Steve got Clint drinking, the sooner he could get him home. Sure it wasn't exactly orthodox, but that is precisely why they decided to leave Banner at home. If all Steve had to do was get Clint drunk, so be it.


	8. Tequila

**Titanium Hawkeye**

**_Chapter 7: Tequila  
_**

_I'm bulletproof, _

_nothing to lose_

_fire away, fire away_

_ricochet, _

_you take your aim_

_fire away, fire away_

_you shoot me down, _

_but I won't fall_

_I am titanium_

_you shoot me down, _

_but I won't fall_

_I am titanium_

During the course of the day, the women in Clint's life came back to him like constant reminders of the troubles in his life. He'd been shot by cupid's arrow more than once and both Bobbi Morse and Natasha Romanov were the origins of those shots. He'd failed Bobbi in his attempt to protect her. Though Natasha and he were close, Loki's possession ripped them apart. He was alone again.

Standing in the club as the night closed in, the last thing on his mind was missed opportunities. His body was in the moment and moving to whatever the speakers blared at him. He stood as close to them as he could, his body pulsing with every dramatic wave of bass pounding out. He never typically listened to lyrics but, for some reason, this song spoke to him. Clint never showed up at the bar with the intention of picking up some random chick and going dancing, but that's precisely what happened. Now he was on the dance floor, letting his body lose control in a fantastic unregulated way as whoever-she-was wrapped her arms around him.

Steve was more than a hit a few dozen bodies down. He had class, and chicks liked that. Being a forties throwback who knew just as much about dancing and rhythm as the lamppost down the street, didn't keep the girls off him. Everyone wanted the chance to show him what real dancing in the new millennium was all about, and that included every low down dirty grind imaginable. Steve was a modest guy, but he could be a sheep sometimes too. He followed along like any good soldier until the music took him to places unknown. Now the master of his own movements, the dames lined up like playboy rabbits waiting for their turn to spin around the dance floor in his expert hands.

Thor never danced. Not once in his life. But he looked hot enough to merit three girls sitting on each of his arms as he did squats by the bar. Tony counted each one out as he absently signed various exposed body parts.

Yeah, this was not exactly how Clint had planned to spend his night out of Stark Tower, especially his night "sneaking" out of Stark Tower. But it was good enough. None of the guys were giving him a hard time and he was actually sort of enjoying himself. They even took a guy oath.

Any thoughts of Natasha were long gone. Any other slight worries about heading to the hospital afterward were distant too. Clint was just enjoying his fresh air, putting off his cares and remaining sober despite Steve's attempts against him.

The song hit a break as the DJ made some irrelevant announcements. Clint took the time to catch his breath. He was sure that dancing like a lunatic prom girl was on Banner's list of things not-to-do, but he never did follow directions.

"Hey, you thirsty?" the girl asked him.

Clint thought about it, looking over at the others. Tony and Thor were now having a push up contest- the loser forced to down a pitcher of warm beer. With a cast on in place of his iron suit Tony required a handicap for Thor. That turned into the now seven blonds standing cheerleader-style on the Asgardian's back. An eighth chick was doing Jell-O shots off his hammer. Steve was being Mr. Amazing, getting to know his crowed of ladies by passing out what could only be dance cards fashioned out of some club napkins.

"Sure." Clint decided. He wouldn't be missed for the next few minutes, and his head was starting to buzz from his proximity to the speakers.

The girl grinned, and they threaded her way through the pit of dancers who had started up with the next pulsing song. She turned back a few times, as if to make sure he followed behind her. They reached the fringes of the excitement and took a seat at a vacant table. A few minutes later the shot girl came by with a sparkling something for his friend and plopped a frigid tankard of tequila in front of Clint.

"Courtesy of the Captain." She said, flirting him a smile.

Clint aimed a look across the dance floor. Steve gave him a thumbs up. The archer shook the glass at him and replaced it on the table untouched.

"Never seen you out here." Clint's dance partner said. Her voice was a measure loud; the speakers had her buzzing a little too.

"Never came out. Been sort of on house arrest last couple weeks. Broke out tonight as it was." He replied.

She smiled. It was a nice smile, he noted. Not like the loaded half-smirks he got out of Natasha. He wasn't sure why he still thought about the Russian.

"You don't seem like the kind of person to be tied down." She remarked, genuinely surprised.

"Yeah, well, I used to think that too. Apparently the Tower's virtual butler has proven otherwise. 'Sides, I've been sidelined from fun stuff for a little while. Medical leave from my job."

Her eyebrow rose. She looked over at Tony who chugged the gallon of beer now. "Job, huh? You're not really fooling anyone. I know who you are. Clint Barton, right? The archer?"

"You got me." Clint smiled. He was getting a lot of that tonight. It felt . . . good. He took a sip of tequila as he nodded his head.

"Me and all the other hero-bunnies in here. Doubt any of you are going to leave here without an entourage." She replied wittily

"Yeah. That's probably about right. Thor flew here. Don't know what him flying home drunk would look like. Tony will need his own gurney too."

"And the dance guru?"

"Cap? He's sort of our top guy. Doubt he'd ever get drunk, if he even can. He'd get us home all right. He's built for that. Looking out for us, you know?"

She watched him as he spoke. Her eyes were dull, grey-brown and boring. Her hair was unkempt from the bustle of dancing. Her shoes were sitting on the chair beside him and three inches higher then she was ever used to wearing. Hawkeye, even a slightly inebriate Hawkeye, could see she wasn't a regular dance-floor attendee either. His assassin senses tingled uncomfortably, but it he knew his overactive imagination set them off.

"You don't get here often either, do you? You're what? Twenty-three? You don't drink, I can tell by the way your smelling that Shirley Temple for alcohol content. You're a good dancer, but don't know to keep far enough away from the speaker to save your eardrums. Those heels didn't last more than three songs on your feet, so you don't hang in heels often. So what's your story?" Clint asked. His observation resembled more of an interrogation than he wanted.

"Not proper to ask." She snapped. She reached for her drink and sucked down enough to prove to him it was definitely non-alcoholic.

"Proper enough, you know all about me. Whole world does. You went for me and aren't lined up for Steve to swing you around. You haven't even taken a turn at trying to lift Thor's hammer off the bar, everyone else has. Hell, I have." Clint sat back in his chair, letting his drink rest on the table between them. This little drinking game he had with Steve was over. He had a mystery on his hands that needed attention.

The girl quieted. She watched the other patrons dancing as she formed her words, her story, and tested the lying boundaries in her head. Clint had already decided he wasn't going to believe whatever bull she came up with during the pause. He almost just stood up and left, but she opened her mouth.

"Fine, all right. So I don't go out. Ever. I'm just some stupid grad student with no life. I never wear heels. They aren't even mine, they belong to my friend Stacy. She's the blond doing the Jell-O shots over there."

Clint looked behind him, noting again the chick sucking alcohol off of Thor's hammer.

The girl sighed and shrugged at the same time. "I don't know what made me even come out tonight. I hate partying. I don't drink, you're right, and I have a final in the morning on goat anatomy. Some of us students just came out for the weekend, to see Manhattan."

"Should have seen it a couple months ago. That would have been a sight." Clint replied. Something was telling him she wasn't lying, or even exaggerating. The truth was a strange thing to him, especially given up so willingly.

She leaned forward, her dull eyes suddenly very intense. "But that's why we came! I wanted to see you again, I wanted to—" She stopped suddenly and slouched back in her seat.

"Never mind," she muttered. "Forget it. This whole thing was a stupid idea."

"Wait—what?" Clint leaned forward now. Maybe it was too late and he was already too drunk for his own good. "What do you mean?"

"I don't know. It was just a stupid idea. Like going to Hollywood to see the celebrities. We _were_ here in Manhattan that day. Stacy was lucky, really, and Samantha and Markus too. They got caught in the subway when the power went out and missed the worst of it. I was in midtown, waiting for them to show up. I—God, it's just so stupid…"

She started to stand, grabbing her heels off the chair. "Look, forget it. Thanks for the dance, I had a lot of fun, really."

Clint bolted out of his chair to stop her. "Hey, come one, just say it would you? Look, if you're embarrassed for getting the crap scared out of you, I get it. Honestly. But you can't keep stringing me like this, I haven't had enough air outside the Tower to deal with a strange dame giving me half a story and not finishing it."

He blinked for a minute, surprised at his own words. _Dame_, he repeated in his head. Steve was hanging out in his room too often.

She looked at him, figured it wouldn't hurt matters any worse to just come out and say it, and replied, "You saved my life."

Clint obviously did not register what she said so she elaborated.

"You were on the building, firing your arrows. One of those, alien things, it was heading right for me. It had a gun. It killed like, four people around me and it just wasn't stopping. I—" Her body went strangely stiff, as if terror flooded her system and pushed every other emotion out. "I just sat there. It wasn't worth running. I figured I was dead but then the thing just stopped. I didn't realize what happened until it just keeled right over. It had an arrow in its back."

She opened her handbag and pulled something out. Hawkeye had only a moment to take in the sight of it and the end of her story all at once. "I don't know, I wanted to give it back. I wanted to . . . well . . . I wanted to thank you. You saved my life. And not just me, there were like, thirty other people there. I just, well, here."

The girl handed him a black rope cord necklace. The principle charm was none other than his arrowhead, the one that saved her life. Along the thin, sharp edge was an engraving in the smallest letters he could ever read while slightly inebriated. They said _Thank You-Emory_.

"It's cheesy and stupid, and I know it makes me look like two years old, but I just—"

"It's great." Clint cut her off. But _great_ wasn't exactly right. It was better than great. It made him feel something. Suddenly the burden of a heavy heart he'd been dealing with was temporarily lifted. He, Clint Barton, saved someone. And they appreciated it. Those were two things that did not happen every day.

In a club of hero-seekers, Clint had been shoved off by the high profile attractions like Tony and Thor. He was stuck in the fringes of the periphery of everyone's attention. Everyone save this one girl who sought him out. To her, the others were nothing. Clint Barton was the only one that mattered in her world.

She seemed to perk up a little. "Really? You like it?"

"Really, I'm being honest. It's—wow, I can't believe you made this, for me." He looked into her eyes. He held the piece in his hands, flabbergasted. He wasn't sure what he should even do with it beside just hold it.

"You're not yanking my chain, right? Because if you are, that's ok, just don't tell me."

"No, I—" Clint felt a body fall across his back. The force of the impact almost sent him flying into the table. The pain from his damaged liver sent him reeling into a chair.

"Hey, arrow-man-guy-guy." A slurring woman said, and then she started laughing in a strange-drunk way. "Where's your friends, they all go? Emmie Baby, come drink a drink with me. Hey I rhymed!"

Recognizing the intruder as Emory's friend, Stacy, Clint relaxed a little. If it had been Tony, the guy would have had a punch to the face by now.

"Stacy I think you're going to need a cab, and a ride home now." Emory broke in.

"No, no—not until I . . . where he go?" Stacy spun around two or three times in place before dropping onto Clint's lap and grinned. "Oh, hi! There you went. Don't go so quick. I can't see too good . . . my drunk glasses on my head. So where's the big guy? I wanted to take him to my place for some more, whatsitcalled, you know?"

"Stacy, get off him!" Emory pulled her up and sat her in a chair beside them.

It mattered little, because Clint stood, suddenly aware something was definitely amiss. He looked around the room for the other three. Steve was no longer taking numbers, Thor and Tony had run off too. But the biggest worry was what stayed on the counter. Thor's hammer. It was unlikely all three went for a manly bathroom break together. They didn't leave on their own power either, Steve would have grabbed Clint too.

"Hey, what was she saying?" Clint asked, scanning the room again as if his eyes were busted and he'd somehow missed the three biggest drawls in the club.

Emory shrugged, pushing Stacy over until the woman passed out on the top of the table. "Said your friends took off, had some guys with them in black uniforms."

Something wasn't stacking up. Clint pulled out his cell phone, checking for any missed calls from Pepper. Nothing. A third time his eyes swept the room but still came up empty handed. It was business as usual when the life of the party strolls out the door. Some women held Steve's makeshift dance tickets and looking around with disappointment. Men continued to climb the bar to pull on the hammer.

"Hey, stick here for a second. I've got to go check something. Don't leave." Clint said over his shoulder.

"Uh, yeah sure, is everything all right?" Emory said.

He didn't answer. Instead he headed swiftly across the room to the center of the bar. He conferred with the bartender for a minute or two, but apparently he did not like the information he received. He returned to the corner table shortly after the hurried talk.

"Look," he began saying before he even reached them, "Get your friend and get out of here. Out of the city too. Head back to Philly, don't stop along the way. You got a car?"

Suddenly frightened, Emory could only manage a small nod.

"I'll help you get to it. See anyone, keep driving. I'm serious. Even if someone crashes into you, keep driving. Do you understand me?"

The intensity in his words was enough for her terror to spike. Her mouth went bone dry. But she nodded anyway. "Yes," she said

"Anyone else with you?"

"No."

"Good." Clint slipped his body under Stacy's and got her to her feet. With Emory trailing behind with her hands full of purses, keys, and shoes, they stalked across the club and out into the open night air. In the time they spent inside, the August air had taken a sudden dip for winter. The hundred plus degree day shot down to sixty, enough for any city to feel like a frozen waste land. Emory was shaking in her miniskirt as she barefooted her way behind Clint. Even injured with a drunken woman in his grasp he made good speed. She found herself running ahead to point out her car. In less than three minutes the two girls were loaded, the car was in drive, and Clint stood by the driver's window.

"Remember what I said, get out of the city and don't stop. Got it?" Clint drilled.

"Yeah, I got it. I swear." Her eyes fell a little, looking at the arrowhead in his right hand still. She had to ask. "Is everything going to be ok? With you, and your friends?"

He shook his head. "I don't know. I don't know who took off with them. Not our guys, I know that. I smell trouble, and trouble for us is like global catastrophe trouble. So get going." He stepped away from the window, giving her enough room to swing the car around. As he watched the taillights pulling away with the girl he would probably never see again behind the wheel, he couldn't help himself.

"Hey! Thanks, Emory!" he shouted. It was a moment of weakness. An uncharacteristic behavior he would here-to-after blame on the tequila. But even with how he explained his actions away, he admitted how good it felt to receive her _your-welcome_ double honk as the car pulled into the street. He turned back towards the club awning as a heavy blanket of clouds moved in, obscuring the half-moon from the sky.

Now he had a new goal: to call Pepper and figure out who the Hell had just walked up in a club and kidnapped three Avengers without a scene.


	9. The Incredible Hulk

Sorry this took so long to update. I've been globe trotting!

* * *

**Chapter 8  
**

_The Incredible Hulk_

When Clint Barton called the tower for assistance with the missing Avengers he found himself in an interesting predicament. Pepper hadn't seen Natasha Romanov in over four hours leaving only Bruce Banner and Happy at the archer's disposal. Though he was appreciative for the good doctor, the absence of Natasha set off another level of alarm bells Clint found difficult to control.

To top his disgruntled feelings, the suddenly cold August night had opened up into a torrential downpour. The archer stood outside, holding up the wall as his memories filtered through what he could have possibly missed in the Avengers abduction. It was eating him apart how he'd let the group slip right through his fingers and disappear without a trace. Then again, disappear was a little harsh of a term. He had plenty of witnesses and a good trail to follow. What he lacked was weaponry and man power.

When he checked in with Pepper, he'd arranged to have Banner sent over for back up. It didn't hurt to ask for a few guns to go with him. Clint was still off limits from using his bow, but with some steady convincing he made it impossible to be left behind on the find-the-Avengers mission. He was a scout, and the best one SHIELD had. If anyone could find them in the city, Clint could.

It troubled him as well that Natasha was nowhere to be found. Even with the prospect of violence on the horizon, she'd taken off. Clint thought about calling her. No doubt she had her cell, she wasn't an idiot. After debating back and forth, he dialed the number he had already memorized. The phone never even rang on his end before she snapped across the line.

"**_What_**_ do you want?" _

Taken aback at the instant snarl he was hit with, Clint reeled for something to say. Nothing came quick enough, so Natasha kept on herself.

"_You know, I never thought of myself as the jealous type. But when I get a flash of your crack on my cell phone humping a chick in a stall . . . I think that just crosses my line._ _If you're looking for a car, forget it. Give your flunky another free ride in the bathroom stall and barter your own trip back to the Tower. Got it?"_

Clint pushed off the wall. He stood with his hand to his opposite ear, drowning out the constant thrum of rain. Maybe the cold, the wind, and the rain made him hear her wrong.

"Nat, what are you talking about?"

"**_What am I talking about_**? **_REALLY_**_, Barton? Get a frickin clue and get off my case. You're lucky I'm not still there right now or I'd kick your white a—"_

"You were here? When did you show up?" Clint cried.

"_Right before you made a fool of yourself, and right after you decided to grind some random chick into the dance floor. You know what, I'm turning around right now, and I am going to hurt you. If you're not at the hospital right now get ready to be."_

"What the Hell, Natasha!? What's the big deal?"

The last thing he heard was a pistol cocking after the safety switch popped off. Natasha hung up on him. Clint had no idea what had her panties tied into a knot, but he was better off avoiding her in the situation than waiting around to convince her to help look for the other three. Besides, Happy finally pulled up, not doubt bending the sound barrier on his approach for "Official Avengers Business". The back door popped open by Banner's hand and Clint dropped into the back seat beside him. Agent Romanov's crazy mood swing was going to have to wait.

"Waiting long?" Banner asked. He seemed relaxed for now, but Clint recognized his familiar mask of calm. Any minute and the roof would peel back and reveal the two-thousand pound Hulk.

"Not long enough for Nat. But that's a separate issue right now." Clint leaned forward to Happy. "Head South on Varick, then put us on 12th street toward the Brooklyn Bridge. And step on it, or else get out and I'll drive."

The man didn't have to be told twice. His foot hit the gas and in no time they were diving into the rain storm.

"How's the broken ribs?" Banner asked next. His tone was somewhat sardonic. He did not approve Clint's all day task of getting himself put on the closest liver transplant list.

"Great. Wanna share? I can arrange it." Barton replied as he settled back into his seat.

Bruce decided to let the topic drop. He'd get his way, eventually, and Clint would end up on the flat of his back without a choice of whether he should stay that way or not. When the time came, an "I told you so" would not be long after. He held his criticism for then.

"You told Pepper something was up. Something serious." Bruce restarted the conversation on a separate track.

"Yeah. And that's an understatement. Some group walked out of the bar with Thor, Tony, and the Cap in tow. Each went willingly. Thor left Mjolnir at the bar. I'd have brought it along if the dang thing would let me."

"OK, I get that he loves it, but he does kind of get forgetful too. I mean, it fell to the bottom of the Atlantic one day and he was able to just call it back from the Arctic Circle." Bruce pointed out.

"How do you explain the group of secret agent men that strolled out the front door with them?"

"How do you know it wasn't SHIELD? Did they flash their badges? Say hi?"

"They left me there. If it was SHIELD, they would have said something to me."

"This would _make sense_ if it was SHIELD because you aren't cleared for duty, but Tony half is."

Bruce again took the role of the simple-speaking analytical one of the group. A mixture of Steve Rogers with just enough Tony Stark thrown in made him both likeable and not a total egomaniac. But that didn't mean he wasn't annoying when he had a point. Bruce knew he was pushing the guy's buttons, so he let off him a bit.

"All right. Let's reconsider this. What do _you_ think is going on here?" he asked. His glasses came off his nose and he rubbed the ridge forming between his eyes.

"I think the same guys gunning for Stark and me off the African Coast are taking advantage of the first chance they have to get him alone. The others are just icing." Clint replied. He still worked on the whole back story behind what happened. Ill-fitting pieces to some bigger puzzle smashed together in his brain. The end result was not the cute little target poster he planned on, but it was a place to start at least.

Banner sighed. "Wherever they are, Tony better get back by nine sharp or else the Secretary of State will have him in a second sling. How is it every time I turn around that guy is getting out of this stupid summit meeting?"

Clint looked at Banner. After a moment, Banner looked back.

"Ok, let's not tell anyone about that little brain fart ok?" Bruce said. "So some secret agent society is keeping Tony from the defense summit. Twice now. What are we going to do about it?"

"That part is easy. Find them, and kill them."

"You and the Hulk?"

"Me and the Hulk."

"Clint, I don't think this plan is going to work out very well."


	10. SHIELD Agent, Titanium Class

**Chapter 9 **

_SHIELD Agent, Titanium Class  
_

Clint Barton pressed his back into a large stone column. His head turned sideways just enough to allow one eye to look into the pit below. A horse-shoe shaped stone cavern lay below, like the end of a subway line beneath abandoned Manhattan streets. A massive wall directly across from them kept the entire bay from flooding right through the tunnel line. With the massive pile of C4 currently adhered to said wall, Clint assumed that barrier wasn't going to last very long.

Tracking the secret agents was easy for him. Any blind, deaf, and dumb beat cop couldn't have missed the breadcrumbs the Captain had left along the way. A demolished street sign, a car flipped on its side, and one unconscious guy hanging from a pole was a rather useful trail to follow. After that came the blood trail. Possibly Tony's, Steve's even but the dew drop splatter was enough to follow, even intermittently.

Beside the archer, Bruce sunk down to his haunches. It was obvious the place had been abandoned for a while, at least since the sub lines had been rerouted three or four years ago. There was an upper access way framed in red brick that circled over the end-of-the-line tunnel like a massive loft. The loft gave a perfect vantage point to the scene below them. Not to mention it was a great place for the three snipers sharing the space just to their left. The forth sniper passed out in the stairwell a few steps away with the introduction of Clint's P30 to his skull. Clint upgraded to the unconscious goon's gun.

. "So, what's going on?" Bruce asked quietly, lowering down again. He still wore the mask of calm that kept the big guy from tearing the place apart.

. "I don't know. They've got Cap strung up in something. He can't get out, which is impressive, and apparently he's the one the blood came from." Clint turned and whispered into his ear

Bruce stiffened a little, but with a quick inhale-exhale calmed again. "Ok, not too big a deal. He heals quick."

Clint agreed, but for didn't decide to share the fact that Steve Rogers had been shot about eight times. The captain gasped and dangled like a lifeless puppet as seven men stood by. At this point, Clint was not about to share those intimate details. He wanted enough time to assess the situation without Hulk smashing everything.

"What about Thor?" Banner whispered.

Clint checked the scene again, and then turned to report back. "That's another weird one. They've got him on something that looks like a massive magnet. He's not even trying to get up. His eyes are opened. I've never seen him like this."

"Asgardian tech?"

"But how is that possible? Loki's in Asgard Jail. Who else would have it out for him?"

Banner's face twisted a little, surprised. His scientific mind was reeled with possible physics answers for the strange occurrence. For now he showed a little self-restraint and asked about Stark.

Clint didn't even need to look. The first person he looked for was Tony though he never mentioned it. The only one down there he cared about as a physical brother was Stark and the state Clint found him in caused his own heart to skip a beat.

"Don't freak out." Clint whispered.

Bruce flashed green, his hands turned to fists. But despite these outward appearances of rage he remained relatively calm. "Bruce Banner, Hulk, Avenger, scientist . . ." he began to mouth to himself.

Clint waited for him to speak. Bruce taught him a similar technique to help him through the months following Loki's possession to keep his own mind from shattering to pieces.

"Say it." Bruce commanded. His voice deepened with a growl behind it.

"Are you sure you want me to say it?"

Bruce's eyes snapped open. They progressed from the simple clarity to a hard and deathly black. Clint decided to hide the intimate details temporarily, so he kept it simple to hold the Hulk in a little longer. The situation required tact. Careful planning. Spy work. It did not need the Hulk to go barreling through that Hell hole below them.

"They're running him under a faucet." He half lied. In actuality, the unknown men down there had Tony on his back with a soaked towel over his face as they let all of New York Bay pour over his mouth and nose. Besides being shot through another interdimensional portal, that was Stark's worst fear.

"They're water boarding him?" Bruce didn't glaze over facts.

Clint swallowed. His Adam's apple bobbed as he weighed what the result of his answer might be. No use in keeping it from the guy when he could just stand up and look for himself. "Uh, yes they **_ARE_**—"

His final word rose from the whisper he first intended on to an exclamation of fear. If there was one guy the secret agents should have nabbed first, it was Bruce Banner. Clint could be knocked out, Natasha locked up, Tony water boarded, the Captain shot (a few thousand times), and Thor . . . well whatever they did to him Clint didn't have a name for.

None of that shined a light to what these unknown agents _should_ have done to Bruce Banner. Or, more importantly, what they should have done to the Incredible Hulk. Clint didn't want the part-time doctor going green so quick. Barton wanted the opportunity to snipe a few guys first and even the odds a little, or maybe get a better idea of what they were up against. But the Hulk knew one thing and one thing alone.

**Smash**.

"Really?! I say take it easy and you go green! Nice job!" Clint shouted at the green back as it crushed through the brick column and leaped down into the subway tunnel below them.

Obviously the Hulk heard him complaining because the next thing Clint found himself dodging was the flying body of a black-clad goon. The guy hit the wall as Clint just managed to duck down in time to avoid catching the body in his face. He considered shooting the Hulk in the back, not because he thought it would hurt the guy, but he was pretty frustrating when he wanted to be. Instead of handling Hulk issues, Clint had much more pressing matters . . . like the fact that three other snipers were changing aim from the Avengers helpless below them to the one Avenger with the rifle. Barton had the time to think the word _crap_, before he lifted his stolen gun and took out the sniper farthest away. The other two converged their fire and the mortar just in front of Clint erupted in a hail of shrapnel.

He hit the floor on his stomach with his hands over his head. The Hulk had left little more than a two-inch lip for him to hide behind. If he didn't get moving, he was going to be sniper bait.

"Hulk! I'm gonna kill you, you big stupid ogre!" he screamed.

:(:):(:):

The Hulk went for Tony first. The black-clad men holding him down had already abandoned their charge in order to pull their side arms and start shooting. It was almost laughable, really. Four of them fit nicely in Hulk's left hand while three others fit in his right. Without much ceremony he picked them up and hurled them at the stone loft directly in front of him. There were still two shooters up there making little nuisances of themselves and he had gotten tired of hearing Clint yelling at him about them. The men in his left hand pummeled flat the one sniper. The men in his right hand took out the second. Hulk doubted that the survivors would be much trouble.

With them out of the way, the rest of the room of cronies was left to him. There were probably another forty-five on the short side. An apparent leader stood beside the Captain with an air of superiority rivaled only by Natasha Romanov. Corn silk hair mixed with crystalline eyes and the hidden ferocity of a pit viper. She held an oversized hand gun formed from an unfamiliar tech. She trained it on the Captain's temple.

A familiar voice spoke beside the Hulk's massive right fist.

"Great." Clint said.

The Hulk looked down, having paused for a moment to decide who he was going to demolish first. Somehow Clint had gotten himself the thirty feet down from the upper loft to the ground level. He stood by the Hulk's foot as the archer stared the woman down. The Hulk for a little while measured the distance up and down with his eyes, as if trying to figure out how, short of flying, Clint had managed to scramble down relatively unnoticed and unscathed. Even as Clint started talking, the Hulk continued bobbing his head up and down, up and down as if trying to make it all out.

"We've been invaded by the Playboy mansion. Cap, really? Germans? I thought we talked you through this war already." Clint said.

Steve's head tucked down against his chest. He attempted to raise it, lifting only his eyes before he gave up. Clint satisfied himself with just imagining Steve's smile instead.

The woman turned the gun and focused it instead on Clint which was exactly how he wanted his move to play.

"Look," Clint went on. "Don't know who you are. Don't really care either to be positively honest. So here's the bargain. Step off now, or I'm gonna let the big guy here do what he does best and turn your face inside out."

The Hulk took some offense at Clint presuming to be able to order him at all. So he leaned down and roared in the archer's ear. Then he straightened up again and waited to see what would happen. He really did want to rip the woman in half, but if Clint thought they could avoid that, he supposed it was a good thing.

Clint did not appreciate being screamed at, but he tried to look unaffected like it happened all the time. Obviously it made the woman, whoever she was, think twice. Her hand still held the gun toward him but now it vibrated with a tremor she couldn't quite hide.

"You do not know us." She spoke with an unfamiliar accent. It reminded him of a mix of German, Russian, and a dash of French.

"Uh, if that was a question, then the answer is no." Clint replied, matching her dead pan with his own.

"Come any closer, your men we will kill. There is nothing now you can do to stop what we plan within the city. In twenty minutes we will wire this place entirely to explode and the sea will swallow all of New York."

"Yeah, see, that's not gonna happen. And I'll give you one reason why." Clint pointed a finger at the tree-sized leg beside him. "That's a mighty big elephant in the room. Twenty minutes, really? We were driving around following you for like an hour and a half. If you couldn't get it done by then, it's just not happening"

"You cannot stop us, Clint Barton. You and your freaks may try, but we are a vast network. You cannot stop what we have in motion. You may win this round. But Hydra never loses the war." She snarled.

"Hate to break it to you, but Hydra did lose the war. Like, eighty years ago and the last time I checked they were as extinct as the triceratops Steven Spielberg shot."

At his insult, the woman allowed her flare of anger to overtake her. She squeezed the trigger and the bullet flew toward Clint's eye socket. The Hulk reached out and snatched the round of metal from the air like he may catch a wayward nickel.

"Ok then. Hulk, smash."

The room erupted in movement. The now identified members of Hydra shot towards the Hulk without any real way of stopping him. As efficiently as they took down the three Avengers in their grasp, they were completely inefficient against the unstoppable Hulk coming against them. They were sadly unprepared.

Clint resigned himself to covering the other three. Tony was most susceptible to cover fire. Without his iron suit, he reverted to just another mere mortal waiting to take a ricochet. Clint stood beside him in a second, working frantically at the handcuffs that had him bolted across two rails ties. He looked like a maiden in distress about to be ravaged by Snidely Whiplash but then again that would make Clint Dudley Do-Right.

"Come on, Secret Squirrel, your hero's come to save you." Clint said with a grin plastered across his face. He pulled the towel off Tony's head and now that he was free, Clint expected all the felicitations that the billionaire would like to bestow. He did not expect the sudden fury with which Tony went launching into the air. Stark's hand clamped around Clint's throat, threw him against the train rail, and proceeded to squeeze until the archer's vision blurred.

An explosion of pain shot through the archer's side. Stars clouded his view. The dull ache he had lived with all day long in his attempt to ignore what was likely (at this point) an inconsequential little liver bruising had now become an issue. A big issue. Desperately Barton grabbed at Tony's hand, barking his name in cries of terror as he tried to get the man to let him go.

"Stark!" He screamed. His voice barely audible as his larynx collapsed into his cervical spine. He had to admit, Tony was stronger than he looked. More often than not the guy seemed like a waif of a human whose sole power resided in his mechanical tinkering. People took him for granted because of that and often forgot the hours of defense training he put in with Clint nightly.

"Stark!" he tried again, beating Tony's hand with his fist. "I—s . . . me! It's . . . Hawk! Stark!"

Tony kept pressing him down, his whole body resting on the one hand that squeezed the life out of his friend. Tony's eyes were unfocused with a disturbing faraway look. The man had no idea what he was doing and, petrified beyond reason, had no plan of stopping until Clint lay dead in his hands. The water boarding threw him right of insanity cliff and he fell like a rock to the very bottom of reality.

All Clint saw as his vision folded into blackness was the bloodshot eyes of his cohort in crime slowly strangling him into oblivion.

The Hulk roared and suddenly the weight lifted off his chest. For a few precious minutes Clint could do nothing but cough and heave and puke against the rusty rail ties. A few feet away was Tony Stark, right where the Hulk had plopped him down. The big guy did it gently at least and Tony didn't look any worse for wear, even if he was still terrified out of his mind.

Hulk stood between them. Looking first at Clint and then at Tony as if wondering what to do with them. The shooting had stopped. Most of the Hydra members were either littering the tunnel like discarded Ken dolls or they had taken off through some strange underwater tunnel. Either way, the Hulk had not decided to follow them. It was an unusual decision for a monster that was not typically known for making decisions at all.

"Thanks . . . He's hhh—all right. Think I . . . I sphhh—ooked him." Clint coughed, rubbing his throat to remove the roughness.

The Hulk looked at him, unconvinced.

"Go get Thor off that whatever-it-is

The dark eyes turned from Tony to the Asgardian who had yet to move from his curled up position on the giant silver dish a few meters away.

"And don't hurt him! I know you don't like him, but be nice, all right. I've got enough issues." Clint clarified.

The Hulk gave him an annoyed snort. "Keep saying rules. Hulk hate rules."

"Oh, stop being a mean Joe! Just go and pick him up or something. I don't know. Or do you want to go break out the Captain?" Clint stuck his tongue out at him in a stray show of absolute bravado. One day he would look back and wonder if he had been just a little bit tipsy to cause himself to stand there and pick a fight with the Hulk.

The Hulk looked over at Captain America. He swayed by his arms. His shirt was relatively nonexistent except for the shreds his blood kept plastered to his chest.

"Too messy." The Hulk concluded.

"Fine. I'll get messy, you be nice to Thor. And if you throw him through a wall or something, then so help me . . ." Clint trailed off, not coming up with an effective threat right off the top of his head.

The Hulk stood there, waiting for him to come up with something.

"I won't talk to you for a week. So there. How's them apples? Go help Thor."

"Stupid threat." The Hulk rolled his eyes, but went off toward the Asgardian anyway.

"Yeah, I don't care right now." Clint yelled back.

He hobbled toward the Captain with a hand holding the hot pain radiating through his back. It wasn't a good sign. Neither was the fact that all his brain seemed to want was to make his vision fuzzy. He tensed his muscles, willing away another horrid wrack of familiar agony before he overcame himself enough to get to Steve. He walked stiffly up the short high rise to the heavy metal cuffs that completely clamped over the Captain's hands and feet. The guy looked like a scene out of the cartoon they were watching that morning. Was it really only that morning? It seemed like years ago.

"Hey, Cap, how's it shaking? Are you still alive in there?" Clint asked, using his hands to lift his commanding officer's head.

As Steve's head lifted up it held a hard grimace. The guy could feel pain and suffer injuries like any mortal man. Whether or not he could ever die remained to be seen.

"Ow." He managed.

"That all you got to say for yourself? Ow?" Clint smirked. "You gonna help me get you out of these sci-fi cuffs or am I on my own here?"

"Sorry." Steve replied, his eyes closing again.

"Didn't think so." Clint grabbed his trusty piece of random electrical wire and started on the cuffs over Steve's feet first. Hard as they were, popping the locks was relatively simple when he found out exactly where the mechanism was located. As he started on the handcuffs, he glanced over at the Hulk's progress.

He'd dragged Thor off of the metal disk by his boot, but it didn't seem to help matters any. The Asgardian remained just as lifeless looking as before. At least now Clint could see him breathing. He counted that in the bonus column. What detracted a little from that small victory was the look the Hulk gave him. Clint began to doubt that "_Hulk Smash_" was finished.

"Hey, big guy! What did I say? No. Smash. Thor." Clint ordered.

With his the first hand free, Steve collapsed. One arm dangled over his head as his body gave up on him. Clint struggled to hold him in one hand as a pain of his own threatened to knock him off his feet.

"Crap, crap, crap." He growled under his breath. "Hey, green, if you're done with alien-guy get over here and help me with the Captain. Or do me one better and give be Banner back so he can go all medical."

The Hulk mumbled disapprovingly but he stomped over. With two ginger fingers he pinched the captain by the chest and back. When Steve cried out in shock of the sudden pain of his multiple separate injuries, the Hulk unceremoniously dropped him again. Clint had just finished with the last handcuff. In the end both tumbled to the brick floor in a pile of limp agony.

"Hulk! That was the complete opposite of helpful!" Clint snarled.

In response, the Hulk could say nothing. He looked disturbingly at his blood covered fingers, with a feeling he could only describe as regret eking into his mind. But that made no real sense. He never felt that. Only anger and disgust and utter hatred. Right now, Clint Barton was being a little more than a nuisance. He was actually insulting! Why then did he feel bad about letting the guy down? He was not about to say he was sorry. But he wasn't sure what he should do. So he leaned forward with his two bloody fingers and smeared them down Clint's back. At least that made him feel a little better.

Clint kicked his hand away.

"Really? You know what? Get out. Just get out! _I'll_ handle this; you just go find an ambulance or something, ok? If you're not going to be helpful and turn back into Bruce, then _go get me someone who **can** be useful_!" Clint leaped to his feet and physically pushed the Hulk toward the tunnel entrance he could hardly fit down.

The Hulk tried to turn, he even opened his mouth as if to say something in response, or growl, or just pick up the little archer and hurl him against a wall, but instead he found himself tossing a helpless hand into the air and doing just what Clint said. Along the way he might just figure out why he was listening at all!

Clint turned away from the retreating green monster. He rubbed a hand into the steady stab in his back. Mentally he slammed a fist against the back of Tony's head.

Tony. Yeah, that was something else he had to deal with.

"How you holding up, Cap?" Clint asked. Figured the guy who bled most needed the most urgent attention. Steve lay still prone on the subway floor. His breathing was thready and erratic. He looked like a train had run him over then backed up and hit him again. Stopping the bleeding was the most important thing at the moment, but it became hard to tell with Steve's unique physiology if that would help him or hurt him.

"Hey, you ok? Captain, I wouldn't mind you saying something. Steve? Hey, Steve?" Clint wasn't sure what he could do. By the second Steve looked more and more like a fading candle wick. Suddenly Clint wished the Hulk had stayed around, at least until he could coax Banner back out of him.

Clint looked over to Tony. Any help at this point was better than none. But Stark wedged himself against the far wall. He rocked back and forth, his body shook all over as he coughed intermittently in a sickening way.

"Tony?" Clint tried. "Tony, you gotta help me. The Captain needs us, can you give me a hand? Tony? Come on, it's Clint. You're fine, so get over here and help me!"

Tony didn't even glance in his direction. He kept rocking and shaking all by himself.

Clint knew it was a lost cause, at least until after Pepper got a hold of him. Instead he looked imploringly at Thor. The guy's foot started to twitch. Clint made the decision to get up for only a moment. He rushed to Thor's side. Maybe there was some way he could rouse the Asgardian back to life a little quicker. But "rush" wasn't quite the word for what Clint actually did. He started out fast, launching up from his heels before a sick wave flipped his brain like an omelet. Clint staggered forward until he almost bounced his face off the floor. Hands, knees, and sheer determination carried him the remaining three feet until he perched over Thor. Firstly he slapped the Norse mythic in the face. Not hard, but just enough to send a message.

Thor's eyes focused in awareness. He could hear, even see, but whatever the Hydra fan club had done to him caused an acute paralytic. He was going to be just as useless as Tony, at least for a little while longer.

From his spot on the floor, Steve moaned. Just another addition to Clint's lengthening list of worries. He missed Banner. Even a mad Natasha was a fitting alternative at this point. Clint pulled out the cell phone Pepper had given him in order to at least give her a call. He realized quickly that his hope was dead before he could even dial. Pepper's phone had been smashed, most likely when Tony body-slammed him into the train track. Thor didn't have a phone. Tony did.

Clint dragged himself to his feet, slower and more mindful this time. After not making a swift return trip to the floor, he managed to get within two feet of Tony Stark. That's as close as he got. Without anyone to pull Stark off him again, Clint wasn't about to push his luck. So, defeated, he went back to Steve and sat over him with his hands working to stop the already slowing bleeding. If the Captain was supposed to start looking healthier, he wasn't. In fact, the death-white pallor resembled the original Captain America pulled from the ice four years before. Clint was on the verge of a nervous breakdown when at long last the Hulk made a dramatic reentrance.

Half the ceiling sheered up and out as one of three subsequent ambulances dropped through the fresh hole and hit the floor below. Clint had to hide his face temporarily as he watched them stack precariously around Thor's prone form. The Hulk and Thor never did get on the same page. Some days it was like they wanted to kill each other. Well, more the Hulk wanted to kill Thor then the other way around. The caped alien was really a good egg in the end, but something in his mind wanted to see which of the two could be the last man standing. That was all Hulk needed to be on a permanent grudge match.

Thank fully, today the Hulk did not drop an ambulance on Thor's head. But that did not mean Banner's alter ego was out of hot water either.

Clint threw his hands in the air as the Hulk fell through the hole, sending the ambulances bouncing on their wheels.

"What the Hell is this?" Clint shouted. "I was being sarcastic! I didn't want you to drag me an entire ambulance! Let alone three of them!"

There was that look again, the surprised dropped-jaw Hulk.

"Got help!" The Hulk defended himself.

Clint rubbed a hand over his eyes, forgetting the fact he was probably smearing the Captain's blood all over himself. "You know what, whatever. I don't care. Grab Thor and throw him in the back of one, all right?"

The Hulk grumbled a little, but acquiesced at last.

"And I don't mean literally throw him in!" Clint clarified.

The Hulk deflated.

Already the terrified paramedics tripped their way out of the safety of their locked front cabs to survey the scene they'd been thrust into. Behind them, the Hulk groaned in displeasure as he tore the door off the back of an ambulance and less-than-carefully plopped Thor half on a gurney.

Clint, unaffected by the chaos he was surrounded by acted only as the happy introducer. He waved and grinned at the medics, beckoning them closer.

"Hi! Yes, we are the Avengers. Captain America has been shot and needs critical care like, now. Tony Stark is suffering some PTSD. Just shoot him up with some lithium right now. Thor's coming around in the back of your bus already. Give us a few minutes and Bruce Banner's sure to turn up and require a little TLC too."

There were six paramedics. They sort of stood in a shocked cluster, looking around them at the improbable situation they had been dropped into. One, obviously a Manhattan attack veteran, stepped forward as if to take charge of the situation.

"And what's your story then?" he asked, already pointing the others in various directions.

Clint grinned. "Me? I'm Clint Barton, Hawkeye, straight up Titanium-class SHIELD agent, Avenger, and all around good guy. And I might be bleeding internally."


	11. The Depth of His Fear

last couple chapters!

* * *

**Chapter 10  
**

**The Depth of His Fear**

He wanted to ride with Tony but the back of that ambulance was full of three oversized EMS trying to get the guy strapped to the bed of a gurney. The probability of going in that ambulance became unlikely. Thor's sheer mass encompassed a good amount of another ambulance by himself and while there was still more than enough room to accommodate Clint, he decided he wasn't in the mood to answer all the medics' questions about the otherworldly friend. That left one option, which was how Clint ended up riding in the bus with the captain. Not because he necessarily wanted to. He had no other choice. The Hulk did not plan to carry him to the hospital and Clint couldn't walk there himself either.

He reclined in the small bench seat pressed between the front passenger seat and the medic who tended Rogers. The Captain looked better. His face held a little more life and the bleeding dulled to a slow trickle. The Hulk lifted the ambulance back to the street level and sent them on their way. Clint watched the big guy lumbering behind them, walking towards the hospital as well.

"Internal bleeding, huh? You know that for certain, or is it a guess?" The medic asked nonchalantly. It was the same man who was speaking earlier to him. The name tag read Joe. A generic form for what was most certainly a Jose.

"Hey, said I'm titanium. Nothing much wrong with me so stop starring like I'm gonna end up on my back to." Clint warned him. He sat back against the passenger seat. He wanted to close his eyes and rest at last but that was a sure way to get himself precisely in the position he did not want to be in.

"Yeah? _Fire away, fire away_. I know that Guetta song to, but singing doesn't make you bullet proof either." Joe said.

"That's not what David Guetta made me believe.

"Sinatra asked to fly to the moon, but I don't remember anyone making him an astronaut."

"My vest repels bullets for a living." Clint countered with.

"You smell like booze and you're wearing club clothes. Last time I checked Hanes didn't make Kevlar shirts."

"So now what, you're a detective?" Clint growled. He was tired, had the beginnings of a hangover, and his back started to ache. The last thing he felt like having was a round of twenty questions. For that he should have ridden with Thor.

Joe held up his hands in surrender. "Hey, look. I'm here to help, all right. Looks like you're getting paler than Captain America, and I think he has way more rounds in him than you might. Now I don't like guys passing out and dying in the back of my bus. I tend to take that personal. So if it's all the same to you I hope you don't mind a little professional courtesy. At least let me hook you to an IV or something. I'll make it real simple."

The thought of an IV, or any other needle-like implement that was no doubt surrounding him on all sides, turned Clint's stomach. Joe saw it coming and just managed to grab the waste bin before a Blue Motorcycle made a return trip past Clint's tonsils. After leaving his guts in the pan, a mind splitting headache followed by a heavy spell of lightheadedness walloped him into near submission. Joe's estimation of him passing out almost came to fruition. But he couldn't let that happen. Not when Joe the EMS guy was digging through the overhead bins looking for the right catheter to jab through Clint's hands.

Clint considered his options. Leaping out of the ambulance would be next to impossible. He had to get by Joe. Remaining conscious long enough to put up a fight seemed the most appropriate course of action but what if the EMT, or other hospital staff hit him with a sedative? He'd cross that bridge when he came. For now he forced himself upright, took a big gulp of air, and prepared himself to start swinging if necessary.

:(:):(:):

He never really lost consciousness. His mind suspended in a sort of limbo between awake and asleep. He could hear someone's voices overhead. One was calm and relaxed, the other frantic, high pitched, and held a hint of murderous intent. He couldn't quite make out what they were saying, but right now he didn't feel like that really mattered. The back of his eyelids were so much more interesting.

The soldier shifted on his gurney, tearing the frayed skin attempting to seal his wounds over. _This is bad,_ his mind told him. He shouldn't try to move or speak. Rest, and a lot of it, called to him but the fight breaking out over his shoulder threatened to drawl him from the Van Winkle slumber. The voices died down and the world beyond his mind settled into a tense silence.

His body shifted. He felt himself rolling along some strange, new place. The feeling was one of safety, but apprehension intermixed throughout. He had the sinking feeling that someone close to him was in danger but he wasn't sure who, or why. And why did no one else help him through it?

Steve Rogers opened his eyes, unable to stand the peculiar tension any longer. It seemed as if the moment they snapped open the entire world around him came crashing into view with a cacophony of sights and sounds. Screaming hit him first. Both men and women shouted orders at each other and a patient a few beds down. Everyone dressed in that strange hospital garb Tony referred to as "joy killers". Anyone wearing them could suck the fun right out of life and explain why even basic tasks like turning over a car engine could spell death in three easy steps. Steve took Tony at his word for it. The captain knew a lot of Florence Nightingales in his day, none of them were the blushing dames he'd been lead to believe they were.

Now there was one solid mass of blues, greens, and burgundy scrub wearers all shoved in a corner fighting off a guy they had obviously underestimated the strength of. His first guess made him consider Thor. The Asgardian looked like an average man but he packed one Hell of a wallop when he needed it. After assessing the scene, the Captain considered the benefit of throwing himself into that fray for the hospital staff's sake.

He figured he'd be better off steering clear. Weakness made his limbs too heavy to carry and trying to talk down the Asgardian (who no doubt disapproved of his ill treatment) was not the top of Steve's get well list.

_Let the staff handle him. Eventually they'd get the idea to just let him be and all the ruckus would cut out_, he thought.

But then something unexpected happened. A gurney went flying by him, opposite of where World War III was in full swing. That new bed held the red-draped body of his alien friend. Thor, looking positively sedate, was propped up with a strangely limp look on his face and his hands lying parallel with his body. He had hardly begun to recover from the strange paralysis. If Thor was there, quietly waiting to be of any use, then who did everyone fight with? And why was security now rushing over with their cuffs in their hands?

As two nurses separated, one tossed to the floor as the other flung about for a better position, Rogers got a good look at the guy throwing the ER into a tailspin. And, of course, it was Clint Barton. All the noise of people screaming and doctors' ordering finally made it through Steve mental filters. With a crash it hit him what was going on.

"Sir, stay still! This is for your own good! Stop fighting, you are going to be all right!"

"Give me that strap and get this guy tied down!"

"Stop struggling!"

"I can't hit his vein like this; we need to knock him out!"

"Just hand me the catheter and move over! Sir, stop moving or we'll stop you ourselves!"

"His packed cell volume is still falling, we need him in surgery ASAP!"

"Just tell them to hold the suite. They can't do jack if he is still conscious anyway!"

"I AM NOT knocking this patient out until he is under control! Someone get me a central line!"

"I still can't get this catheter placed!"

Steve's level of alarm swung off the charts as he watched the horror crossing over Clint's face. The Avenger had descended from terrified to a full blown mental panic. Unlike Tony Stark's typically panic attack (fraught with heavy breathing, a tonic-clinic state, and sleepless nights) Clint Barton's panic came with only the fight from a fight or flight personality. With the intelligence of a trained assassin brewing beneath his normally calm or cocky exterior, he could seem like the most remedial man around. Faced with what Steve Rogers quickly recognized as a form of kryptonite, the archer completely lost his mind.

Six nurses hit the floor clutching various assaulted body parts. One doctor held a wad of gauze to a mostly bleeding nose while a second attempted to extract his four left fingers from Clint's reverse wrist grab. Three men laid on his legs in an attempt to pin them to the bed. Thankfully they had managed to remove his shoes before he kicked two of them in the face and round housed the third.

In his state of unchecked terror and unable to put words to his fears, Clint did little more than continued to fight tooth and nail against everyone coming over to him. One security guard was not above just pulling out his taser. He held It in his palm like a warning, but Clint no doubt would soon disarm him of the weapon and the war for his patient care would become exponentially more complicated.

"STOP! Stop! Just let off him! Do you hear me! Get off him!" Steve shouted.

The Captain tried to sound like his normal self, but only half the strength seemed to hit him. When it was obvious the hospital staff were determined to ignore him, the Captain grabbed the first joy-killer that passed his bed in an iron grasp. He ordered them in a way he was never denied to drag his bed closer until he and Clint were side by side. The nurse he grabbed gave him a skeptical look, but Steve didn't give her a choice. Either his bed would be moved, or Steve as going to use Tony's emergency line. In the crowded ER, full of hidden camera phones, Steve "Captain America" Rogers was going to scream "Rape!"

Given that ultimatum, she dragged Steve's bed to Clint's side. Reluctantly the doctors backed off for now. But in reality they just let his arms go and stepped back a pace. They still stood there, ringing around the bed like hungry wolves about to devour an unclaimed fawn.

He sat up in his bed, his chest giving him a good old rousting of uncontrolled pain. He ignored it for the archer's sake. He found his voice again at least. It was forceful enough that Clint's years of soldier training took over and made him listen before he ever made the conscious decision to.

"Clint? Hey, agent, look at me." Steve said.

Clint's eyes were large as saucers. He looked like a terrified bird throwing himself against the inside of a pane of glass.

Steve reached over and grabbed Clint's arm. The back of the archer's hands and the crook of his elbows were all covered in miniscule pinpricks that welled with blood droplets. Steve couldn't tell how many times the staff must have stabbed him in the quest for blood or opening a vein for anesthesia and fluids. Rogers wanted to ask if he was ok. But he minded Tony's earlier warning at the bar.

_"Drop it. Clint's fine. If he wasn't, he'd say it. Don't ask again."_

Clint was most certainly _not_ ok but Tony had a point. It didn't help to just continue to prod him about it. Clint came to the team emotionally shattered. He may have hidden it better than most and he could build a mask the way Romanov could create an entirely new life, but that didn't mean that beneath the polished veneer surface Barton was normal. Steve had to start putting his friend . . . could he use that word? . . . back together again. This would be step one.

"You lied. Coulson never lied." Clint said. His voice was an octave too high. He swallowed, trying to get himself to sound a little more normal.

"I'm sorry. I don't know what you mean, but I'm sorry."

"_I said stupid drunk_. I didn't get to be _stupid_ drunk before I got to go to the hospital. It's not fair. Not fair."

Steve felt like a fist hit his gut. _Crap_. The first real promise he made the guy, and Steve blew it, big time.

"Not for lack of trying. I gave you a lot of alcohol. But you're right and it's true. I will never, _ever_ break another promise again. And when this is over we can go out again and get you **black**-out drunk if you want. I'll help. But look, Barton, I can't stop what they've got to do all right? You need this or you are going to die and that will let down the entire team. Got me? Say you understand."

Steve had Clint's right hand tightly locked in the Captain's left. That little bit of support was the only thing holding Clint back.

"Say it, agent." Rogers ordered.

"I ... I understand" Clint stammered.

"Now look. You pick. Look over there and pick one person to trust. I can't put an IV in, I'm no good at it and I'll just screw you up worse. So pick out someone you think you can trust, got me? I don't care if it's the hottest dame in the hospital, it's _your_ pick. But you've got to choose right now."

"They stuck me like forty times. I don't want to be tested. I Don't want to wait for the results. Not again. What if they gave me something? What if—"

Steve's grip tightened. "This is the best hospital in the city. They don't share needles. You're going to be ok. You have to pick someone."

He knew in the back of his mind how ridiculous it must look to the world as he held Captain America's hand in front of God and everyone over a stupid needle, but he couldn't help himself. He was absolutely terrified. He understood exactly how Tony felt when the guy came around and decided to strangle him half to death.

Steve was waiting. Clint had to pick.

"Bruce here?" He asked, his voice getting little steadier. He didn't even want to look at the guys in the white coats.

Steve's eyes flicked to the group standing around long enough to get this answer. "He's still out of it. Hulk's pacing outside the lobby downstairs. Apparently he's being a worry wart. Sorry, Clint."

"Great." Clint mumbled. He glanced at the crew beside him. None of them looked particularly interesting. In fact, a few looked like they were in it for revenge sake and that was never a good sign in his book. Then the flash of blue caught him in the corner of his vision. An EMT stood at the nurse's station filling out paperwork as his driver started to head out the door. Clint recognized the guy instantly.

"Him. I want him." He said desperately.

Steve had to sit up a little and twist to see the man. He wasn't sure if the guy was even qualified to do what needed to be done, but at least Barton had made a choice.

"You know him?" Steve asked.

"Sort of. Joe? Hey Joe?"

The man picked up his head and turned around to find who called him. When it was obviously the Avengers team he had the extreme pleasure of transporting earlier, he happily trotted over. Enthusiasm leaked away some when he saw the murderer's row-look on the hospital staff. His focus quickly shifted to the Hawk and Captain America.

"Hey, you're looking livelier sir." he said. His head gave a short nod at the Captain.

"Thanks. Can you do us both a big favor?" Steve replied.

"What? Is Titanium Hawkeye here busting some other noses?" Joe looked at the row of docs behind him as his mind filtered through the scene. It was obvious Clint was still being just as uncooperative in the hospital as he had been in the back of the ambulance.

Steve gave a questioning look over at his friend but Hawkeye shut his eyes, willing away another fit of nausea.

"Yeah, sorry about that."

Joe shrugged. "No big. He didn't break mine but not for lack of effort. Besides, the cut under my eye gives me little evidence with the misses as to why I am getting home late from my shift. Not sure how else I could get her to believe that I was abducted by the incredible Hulk, thrown into a subway tunnel in lower Manhattan, and treated two Avengers in the back of my ambulance until one of them socked me in the face."

"Nice. Sorry about that. I'll even call her if you want. But right now I need another favor if you can manage it." Steve chuckled some, then his body reminded him that even Captain America was not adverse to pain. So he stopped himself short.

Joe again looked at the starting lineup and the security guards getting antsy. Not far away, a gaggle of sterilized surgical techs had all the makings of doing an open heart surgery right in the middle or the ER if that is what it came to.

"My friend's scared of needles. But not _just_ scared, ok? He needs help and he won't let anyone at him. I asked him to pick someone to put in his IV and he picked you. Can you do that?"

Steve's request was genuine, heartfelt, and All-American to the core. Even if Joe wanted to refuse, after that request there was no way he could. However, the little jab he replied with was not unfounded.

"I seem to remember this was how my nose started hurting in the first place."

Clint said a meek apology, but he did not look up. His hand crushed against Steve's. He was lucky Roger's sported super serum enhanced knuckles. Anyone else would be sporting a few broken fingers by now.

Joe eased himself around the bed, grabbing the discarded IV lines and catheter sets left by the crew that still pressed in around him. At any point the docs could pull rank and have him tossed out of the ER but for now some seemed happy just to let some other guy get thrown to the Hawk's talons. Spectators circled the end of the bed, ready to jump in or laugh, it was hard to tell which. The overall feeling was one of disbelief. There was no way this guy was going to just waltz in, get the vein, and walk out like a medical hero.

But Joe gave it a try. The Captain remaining conscious and keeping Clint's attention to the best of his ability (and bullet wounds or not, that was pretty darn good), placated him. Every three seconds some alarm or other went off. Clint's heart rate climbed dangerously high while his blood pressure fell from sheer volume loss. Holding his breath did not help matters.

"You know how this works?" Joe asked him.

Out of habit Clint nodded that he did, but somehow that wasn't convincing enough.

"I have the smallest IV catheter in the hospital. I'm going to ease it just for a second into the vein on the back of your hand-"

"NO!" Clint suddenly screamed, thrusting himself up as if he'd find the strength to jump off the bed entirely. Steve's single hand holding Clint's was enough to keep him from going too far. A warning glance kept the waiting staff from jumping him also.

"Ok, ok, relax! Ease up, and sit down now! That's an order, Barton!" The Captain said.

Clint unwillingly followed orders.

Joe came up with a new tactic. "Ok, no hands. Scouts honor. You have two options. Arm, or I'll just jab this thing right into your jugular."

Clint moved to open his mouth but Joe cut him off mid-sentence.

"Arm it is. I lied. Well, not really that happens on a rare occasions but this isn't one of them. Since Captain America's got your other arm, that means this one is mine. If you need to mentally get ready, I'll give you a countdown. Ok?"

Clint fluttered a breath he could no longer hold. Somehow his grip tightened even more. His free hand grabbed hold of the side of the bed for dear life. Panic welled in the back of his throat as he desperately tried not to fall apart.

"Barton, you're fine. Ok? You are fine. You are with me. We are in a hospital." Steve chanted beside him.

At a nod from the Captain, Joe began to count. "Five."

"You are not in Budapest. You are with me. Tony is here, Thor is here, and Banner is waiting just outside."

"Four."

"You are not going to die, and this is only going to last a second. Not three days."

"Three."

"When this is over, I promise to give you your bow back."

"Two."

"Don't hold your breath. Just breathe through it. Didn't Banner teach you something? Say your name. What's your name?"

"One."

Clint's entire body tensed as he waited. Joe had grabbed his free hand and allowed Barton to wrap it around Joe's bicep. The position made it easier to watch the veins pop up. And sandwiching Clint's limb between Joe's body and the bed rail made certain the guy was not going to pull away easily.

"Quick bee sting." Joe announced.

"_Agent Clint Barton_." Steve said. "_You move one inch and** I will throttle you so hard** you will be out of commission for six months_!"

Collective breaths were held. The staff leaned in to watch as if in observance of a brain transplant, or the reattachment of a severed limb. Everyone closed in except for the single person in the room that mattered most.

Clint was petrified beyond all sane reason, but the sound of the Captain's voice kept him from really losing it. Somehow it was like Phil was back in his ear piece talking him through even the worst of cases. His mind pressed him back to Budapest when Phil burst through the room with his team from Afghanistan. Some of them still smelled like sand and sweat but they were there for him. Phil leaned over his body, and pulled the first dirty syringe out of his fingers. He told him everything was going to be all right.

"Clint? Clint can you hear me?"

Barton cracked open his eyes. Steve sat up on his elbows, their hands still locked together.

"It's over." Steve told him.

"Nothing but a rubber straw in you now." Joe said. "Cause once the 'you know' hits the vein we just feed the catheter through and pull the metal out. Easy as pie. You did good."

"I think I'm gonna throw up." Clint whispered, tasting bile in the back of his throat.

"Well throw up in this." Joe said, quick again on the waste pan retrieval.

About four seconds later, Clint lunged into the pan and the world again set into motion. Doctors fussed over what kind of cocktail they were throwing through his veins. Nurses coated half his chest in alcohol and iodine in preparation for surgery, and people began running by with bags of blood. Steve had sat through this charade once already when they pulled Tony and Clint out of the plane wreck. He wasn't keen on watching it all over again.

Clint too let it all happen, but not without his patient advocate Joe standing over him like an overprotective mother hen. He made sure nothing else of the metallic and pointy variety came within forty feet of the bed until Clint was already being wheeled away to the OR. The agent hadn't even been properly sedated yet, but time was now of the essence. It was surgery or die.

For his part, Steve felt as much on the mend as Thor. The Asgardian just regained control of his fingers and toes. His eyes had been fixed on the scene the whole time but now seemed to shift around and take in the rest of the room. As they were now beyond the critical near death stage, Steve knew it wouldn't be long before the Avengers were hauled off to a private room for the duration of their recovery.

Almost on cue with that little thought came the appearance of Bruce Banner at last. He was wheel chaired through the door by the nurse's station and pushed over to Steve's side. A look of extreme concern covered his face.

"God, Steve, are you all right? The last I remember you looked like Hell. Someone had blasted your chest open. Is that Thor? Is he all right?"

"I'm doing ok. Him to. Clint's just been rolled off to the operating room. Tony is still with psych waiting for Pepper I'm sure."

Banner rubbed the space between his eyes where his glasses typically rested. "Lovely mess this all turned out to be. You know we could have avoided all of this if that dang Hawk would have just gone to the hospital for his check up this morning? Now look at us."

Steve just gave a weak grin. He wasn't in the mood to argue. Actually a nap sounded like a much better plan. Even as the nurses came over and started wheeling his bed off to the ICU with the trail of Thor and Banner not far behind, Roger felt himself fall into the arms of Morpheus and he knew no more.


	12. Epilogue

**Epilogue  
**

Clint Barton stretched like a cat waking from a long summer nap. The sun beamed through the window closest to his bed and illuminated his face in the morning hues of late July. He knew right away he was not at a hospital. That was always a nice feeling to wake up to. Although his current location could easily be assumed as the Stark Tower, he was definitely _not_ in his room. Again. The last time Clint had this particular situation, he had woken up at the bottom of Tony Stark's bed. The jokes that arouse from that wakeup call had yet to cease ringing in his ears. He could be in Steve's bed. Or Banner's. What finally got him moving was the thought that he might be in Natasha's bed.

Clint lunged forward, whipping his head left and right. As his head spun left, a sudden stop of fist-meets-jaw knocked it sideways. Clint's arms windmilled to steady himself, but nothing could stop the sudden shock of momentum that sent him sailing off the side of the bed and crashing to the floor. He did not mistake the red hair out of the corner of his vision for some other happier bedside vigil, like Pepper Potts or Stark with a wig.

"Get up Barton or so help me I will_ **hurt you worse**_." Natasha snarled.

Clint's freshly operated on liver groaned in protest. He was happy that he didn't have a recreation of the last day's full of agony, but some part of him wondered where the pain had gone. Like an amputee looking for his missing leg. He did as he was told, pushing himself up to a sitting position with his hands over his head and the bed between them for protection. He said nothing and waited for what would surely be the mother of all wake up calls.

Natasha wasted no time in getting right to her issues.

"First Bobbi, and now some club bimbo? Really? You know, if you needed someone to talk to you could have just asked. You don't need to go sneaking off with Stark and try to get yourself killed. If this is how it's going to be, I'm done."

Clint opened his mouth to say something, and then his hand dropped a little to touch the strange thing he just realized was on his head.

Natasha pulled out her berretta and his movement stopped.

"Four years. Partners for four years and you still can't tell me crap. I didn't ask about Coulson. I never asked about Loki. I knew that was how you wanted it and I did everything I could to never say a word. But I can't pick up your pieces anymore. It's like I'm not even there and everything we ever had means nothing. So I'm done."

At the sound of Coulson's name, Clint's body spasmed. When she mentioned Loki, He nearly put his fist through the wall. But now that she gave him the opportunity to say something, he was too shocked to form a word. He sat there for a moment trying out different sounds with his lips like "I" and "uh" before he just shook his head a few times and sat forward.

"Nat, _what_ are you talking about? You're sounding like some crazy ex-girlfriend that I just spent the night cheating against. Ever see super ex-girlfriend? Uma Therman? Yeah, I feel like the Luke Wilson right now and you are kinda freaking me out."

Apparently those were not the whispers of sweet nothings she waited up to hear. Natasha grabbed the lamp on the small table beside the bed and chucked it across the room at him. Then she picked up the table and threw that too. Clint dropped to the floor to avoid it and the ensuing shrapnel from the window being almost busted out. Apparently someone had the forethought of installing a form of bullet proof glass that resisted shattering on impact. It must have been for Clint's benefit. No doubt her next logical step would be launching him into open air space.

"What the Hell? Nat, are you crazy?"

"Don't _Nat_ me!" Natasha screamed. "Why don't you go flying off into the sunset with that new _dame_ you were all over. I'm sure she's more than happy to be your new hero bunny!" Natasha pulled something out of her pocket it and tossed it onto the rumpled bedspread.

Clint leaned up enough to see what it was. It wasn't until he realized what she had that his own fury began to build. Not just "she's being a PMS assassin so be angry, but not angry" mad, he was downright furious. He snatched it up just as quickly as she'd thrown it.

"This?" he roared. "This is what everything's about! All this "I'm quitting" crap is over her?" Clint shoved the arrow tip necklace over his head and stalked for the door. "You know what, Natasha? Then quit. You don't like the fact that I can do some good and actually save somebody, then I don't want you around anyway. Sorry I disturbed your beauty sleep. Won't ever happen again."

He grabbed the door handle and flung the door inward in order to escape. He couldn't believe Natasha had followed him, let alone seen everything she did and still had no clue what had happened. The one shining light of his entire evening, no, his entire couple months of being the Avenger's little scout boy, and here Natasha was flinging it in his face. Let her quit. Let her get out and never come back and just leave him be once and for all.

"Clint!"

He heard the desperation she normally kept out of her voice ringing loud and clear. But it didn't matter. He was bound and determined to ignore her completely and stalk down the halls until he found his room again. What was with the stupid midnight sleep walks anyway? If he kept at it, he was going to have Steve tie him to the bed at night.

"Clint!" Natasha was in the hall now too, running after him.

Still, he ignored her. Instead his hands went up to his head, wondering just what on God's green earth was matting his hair over his head. He assumed it was a shower cap or something similarly stupid that was no doubt a product of Tony Stark. He pushed whatever it was off backwards but found the bottom of it stuck to his shirt like a hood. He stopped for a second to pull at it a few times in a fruitless effort to dislodge it. The trouble was now his necklace was stuck on the outside of it, holding it on.

Natasha had already caught up to him. Without being asked, she disentangled him. It was harder then it looked, but they both stood there, not speaking, while she fussed over him. When at last he was free from feeling choked, she opened her mouth to say something.

"No." Clint cut her off. "Just, don't. You're completely wrong and I don't care what you want to say to get yourself from feeling guilty about it."

Her once docile face screwed into an angry sneer. Two and a half seconds later she had her knife out of her back pocket and Clint pressed up against a wall with the blade against his neck. He had no doubt she would cut him, or kill him. She'd done it before.

"Will you just shut your big stupid mouth for a second. I was going to say I'm sorry!"

Clint glanced down at the knife with only a flick of his eyes. "Some communication skills you've got there."

"What does it even matter to you?" she asked, still angry but with less of a bite.

Barton leaned back against the wall. He was suddenly feeling exhausted. Not an uncommon feeling when waking from anesthesia with Natasha Romanov sitting at your bedside with a mood for death.

"Nat," he sighed. "What is all this? Jealous girlfriend? You never act like this. Ever. What's going on?"

"I'm not a jealous girlfriend."

"Well you're acting like one."

"It's not that. I just think you're an idiot for sleeping with the enemy."

"She's not the enemy. I didn't even know her."

"And that makes it better?" Romanov tensed, but didn't start screaming, or slicing. Both were a bonus.

"We didn't sleep together."

"She knew me. During the attack in Manhattan one of my arrows saved her life. Me. Not you, or Steve, or even Stark. She heard I was at the club and went out of her way to find me. She wanted to say thank you. Without knowing any of the terrible things I did. She made this for me." He reached up, feeling he was safe to move without being openly filleted. His fingers played with the arrow tip. "This was the arrow that saved her life. If I hadn't been there, she would have died. I guess it kinda was like clearing my name. Blotting the red in my ledger with white out."

Natasha slackened her grip some, her eyes falling to his chest. Her free hand joined his as it held the arrowhead. He didn't know her. He didn't realize the danger he'd put himself and the entire team in. How was she supposed to expect Clint to recognize a person from her past if she'd never opened up to him about it?

As her hand clasped around his her thoughts went back to those days long before they were together. Back when she ran with the Russians, with Red Room, and endured years of brutal punishment in the name of good training. How could she just let this pass? She couldn't hold Clint's ignorance against him. She didn't want to open up either, not just yet. With the re-emergence of that woman he danced with, of Yelena Belova, her entire life threatened to be exposed.

_:(:):(:):(:):_

_Light barely filtered through the slatted boards overhanging the basement floor. The cold cement stretched around them, smelling of bleach and alcohol from the clean—up crew who had just vacated, leaving the women to their singular schemes. In the center of the room he sat before her. His arms strapped around his back and his feet shackled to the floor. Unconscious, for now, he offered no replies to the contemplations of the Red Room operatives around him. He held no opinions, no arguments; he even came almost willingly to the abandoned Budapest fortress. _

_As Natasha decided just what she planned to do now that they arrived, Yelena spoke._

_"The Benefactor isn't exactly thrilled you decided to take him in instead of just kill him outright."_

_Yelena Belova had been a close acquaintance for the last twelve years. Though their friendship disappeared briefly when Natasha defected from the Red Room and joined SHIELD, Yelena had a habit of keeping up with her friend. She was a blond bombshell of Amazonian height and eyes as smoky and dark as the air around a forest fire. _

_When Natasha spied Clint following her to her sanctioned hit, she intended to leave him be and move on to the secondary location. Yelena pointed out the importance of aptitude when it came to dealing with SHIELD. Clint could not be allowed to escape, to report in, or to continue to foul up their attempts with the government hit. He had to be taken into their custody. _

_Natasha raked a hand through her hair, pulling free the blond wig that once trapped her locks in a constricting matt. She worked her fingers through the tight curls, springing them to life. _

_"I wish you'd stop calling him that. His name is Catz and he can get over it. Barton is a worthy quarry. He's a SHIELD agent and he knows key decryption data for Level 5 SHIELD outposts. He also just got off looking for the US defense contractor Tony Stark. If we can get Stark, we can control advanced weaponry."_

_Yelena stalked over to the unconscious archer, threading her hand beneath the archer's chin. "He's cute."_

_"No he's not."_

_Yelena raised an eyebrow. "Is that a hands-off-Barton warning I hear?"_

_Natasha's eyes narrowed. "It's not like I branded him. Barton is an asset. One we will be stealing everything we need from before he's disposed of."_

_"And how exactly are we going about that? I heard he's a tough nut to crack. You know the man better. What causes him to quake?"_

_"He has no outright fears. None I know of."_

_"So we must manufacture his fears."_

_Natasha nodded as she looked down on the unconscious face of her once partner. She tilted his slack skull upward and stared down into his face as she debated. _

_"Psychological damage," Yelena offered, "Is the most reasonable though all psychological mental breaks must be matched with a physical act. We can break his fingers, his toes, and work out way bone by bone until there is nothing that remains."_

_"That may not work on him."_

_"He's an archer."_

_"He is."_

_"I have an idea, Widow."_

_:(:):(:):_

"I have an idea." Clint said.

Natasha broke from her memories to look up at him.

"Take the knife away from my throat and let's talk?"

Clint paused like that. His hand pressed into hers, her breath smelling of mint and strawberries was driving his senses crazy. He'd never noticed how beautiful she smelled before now. Her luscious eyes were focused on the arrowhead that had him so transfixed, as if somehow she could will herself back to that night and banish away all the misconceptions that brought her rage around. Clint resisted his urge to just reach out and pull her closer. For one, there was still a sizable blade between them. But perhaps even more important was the horrid memory that came unbidden to his mind.

The last time they were this close, he was trying to kill her.

The moment was lost to infinity. Clint couldn't stand to be across from her like this any longer. In three easy motions he took advantage of her distraction and stole the knife from her hand. With a twist, the angle of his shoulder, and a well-placed jab, it was Natasha who found herself shoved against the wall with Clint standing like an immovable force over her. His left arm was across her neck but the knife hit the floor in the scuffle.

Natasha looked at him admiringly. "Wow. Thought Banner said no rough house."

"Like you ever help me do what Banner says." Clint replied coolly.

For a moment her cool façade fell into one reminiscent of a child ousted on its bad behavior. "Don't know what you're talking about."

His face slid toward hers. "Really? How true is that?"

Her lips suddenly bridged the gap and Clint found himself entangled by her snare. He attempted to pull away, worried that this was some dangerous ploy often used the Russian to undermine the men she was after. It probably was at some point. But suddenly it felt so good he didn't care whether she faked it or not. He allowed her to grab the back of his head and pull him in until hardly a breadth of hair separated their faces from one another.

Hungrily she devoured him as his arm slipped from the strangle hold against the front of her to the small of her back. Romanov, ever the aggressor, turned him around until again he was against the wall. They stayed, locked together in each other's arms for what seemed like eternity. At least to Clint it was that way. For Natasha, it was just long enough to reach into her back pocket, cock the single action derringer hidden there, and press it to his forehead. Barton sighed again as he pulled away from her.

"Some things never change." He said in the expanse growing between them.

"Some things shouldn't." she told him.

"Nat, if you cared at all about me, then why did you stay away? You didn't even tell me about Phil. You just, you completely shut down." Clint asked her, point blank.

He remembered what they had. He remembered all the good times in their life before Loki. All the mayhem they caused, every waking moment spent sharing each other's thoughts, moving through life as if two halves of the same body. Loki had taken more than his body, he had taken away Clint's very life. Nearing three months afterwards, he was still trying to get back everything he had lost. If Natasha was leaving him forever, then what else did he have? Tony? Steve?

"You know how I need you. You have always known how I needed you, and you weren't there. Ever. Even after Tony and I came back from Africa, you kept away from me like the plague, why? Make me understand because I just don't."

Natasha's eyes met his again. He knew she had few answers for him. To her all that mattered was the now. Whatever wall had formed between them was slowly crumbling to nothing. Whatever professional relationship they had buried beneath it.

"I'm no good at this feely stuff." She told him honestly.

"Then let me be good at it." Clint whispered. His hand reached out, sweeping through the disheveled locks cascading down her shoulder. "Just let me."

"Look, if you are going to shoot the guy, then just get it over with already, ok? Otherwise step back and give me the opportunity to admire my handiwork upright."

Romanov lingered for a moment longer, her body pressed against Clint's before she decided something in her mind and pulled away. The gun slipped into her pocket and she sashayed away, by the newcomer, to the well traversed hallway. She considered the gift around his neck, the arrow head from Yelena, and her stomach churned in black. She needed to find Yelena, speak to her alone and discover what plans she held for meeting with Clint the way she had. In the meantime, this must be her secret.

Tony, still with his arm in a cast, looked overly pleased at his friend Clint Barton. "You know I figured she was going to shoot you and then walk away. Honestly, it's amazing. I don't know how I do it. It fits you perfect. You look amazing. Did I say that already? Well it's true."

Barton shook his head at Stark. After the crazy moment he just shared with Natasha, he was not planning to follow it up with an appearance by Tony. But when did he really have a choice in those matters? He couldn't be too unhappy. It was good to see Tony not wigged out like a feral cat backed into a corner.

"Hey." Clint said. "Psych have fun with your little brain too?"

Tony cracked a grin. "You know, I think they found me cooler then you. Helps that I bribed him to fake my clearance with a season pass to the Rangers games. Honestly, who watches the Rangers? Don't even ask me why I have season passes to begin with."

Clint smiled too. "Why do you have season passes to the Rangers?"

"I may or may not have thrown a few octopuses at the Detroit goaltender during a Stanley cup match between the two. Or something like that." Tony threw his good hand in the air. He strode forward up the hall, scrubbing a hand through the stubble on his chin. The closer he came to Barton, and the ridiculous thing he dressed the guy in, the harder Tony was hit with a sight he had not prepared himself fully for.

Tony almost killed Clint. Steve told him that. Seeing the fresh, raw marks ringing his friend's neck were horrid reminders of what Tony was capable of. It took him a moment to retrieve the cool exterior he fought hard to maintain.

Clint saw every transition of emotion. He wasn't an idiot. Neither was he surprised.

"We got off topic. I don't know what you want now. So either follow me back to my room or tell me what you want. Or, how about both." As Clint started out after Natasha, Tony caught his shoulder halfway and turned Clint around. Arm in arm, they moved back up the hall to the room Clint had escaped from just a few minutes before.

"Actually, I sort of modified things a little. Had to change your room to someplace else. Can you believe Elsa actually lit your lamp on fire? Then your bed? I wanted to kill her, but Pepper suggested just changing up your digs, so we did that first. You can thank Banner that you are even mobile right now. Most guys don't just hop out of bed after major surgery. Someone convinced the docs not to put you on morphine again. Something about PMS or PTSD or something. Banner's got you on his own cocktail I swear, he got it from this half Jackie Chan looking guy in an Indian restaurant. It was epic."

As Tony spoke, they were already reentering the room Clint had earlier mistaken for Natasha's. Now he saw all the things anger helped him miss. The dresser in the corner, obviously masculine. And the passports (all of his passports) lined up along the top beside his wallet. His bow case leaning in the corner beside his bed. Over top of his bed hung his bow itself and an empty quiver. Clint walked over and read the yellow Post It note stuck to the wall just beneath both.

_Promised I'd give your bow back, didn't say anything about arrows. Feel better soon, and maybe you'll earn them._

_-Steve_

Clint smirked at that, crumbled the note and tossed it in the bin beside his bed. Across from his bed was the wall of windows that had filtered to morning sunlight over his sleeping body. It wasn't a bad view at all, he could see over half the city from the height of Stark Tower. Not to mention the new addition just beyond the obviously padlocked sliding door.

"Smashed one already. Nice job. Oh yeah, the locks were Banner's idea." Tony explained. "When he says so, he'll take them off and you can enjoy the personal Hawk nest. I even gave you a telescope. Well, technically Pepper did, but it's all my money so semantically speaking—"

"Tony?"

Stark looked at him.

"Thanks. You can shut up now."

That only made Tony beam with even more pride. He walked over and shoved a hand down on the bed to display the comfort (or lack of) for Clint's benefit. "Complete with two virtual box springs and a few sheets and you have the most awful back brace called a bed in the world. Elsa insisted."

Clint was too overwhelmed by it all to continue smiling. He sank against one of the windows, and watched Tony with a mixture of emotions playing against him.

"Good old Elsa." He managed to say.

"Yeah, awesome, lovely. I think she stole thirty dollars from your wallet. And, you have yet to remark how much you love your outfit, can I just say that out loud? So . . . what do you think?"

Tony paused long enough for Clint's heart to leap into his throat. He remembered in the back of his mind how hard it was to get the strange shower cap off his head and couldn't figure out why it was attached to his shirt in the first place. Now, he began to understand. Tony was in "creation" mode. Who knew what he decided to dress Clint in while the assassin was recovering from surgery. Clint rushed to the attached bathroom and before he realized what he was doing he already had no choice left.

His hand flicked on the light and suddenly Clint was faced with the mirror image of himself. The sight almost caused him to pass out. It wasn't the costume, the gaudy neon purple and grey number Tony no doubt modeled stitch for stitch after the cartoon show they sat together and watched. Even the half skirt and cowl were complete to his and JARVIS's astounding standards. But that wasn't the most impact. It was Clint's own reflection. The same reflection he had avoided seeing for almost three months straight. He leaned over the sink, suddenly feeling physically ill. He thought he may even throw up but he couldn't move toward the toilet.

Tony had moved from the bed to the bathroom doorway to watch the great reaction unfold. But when it was obvious things were beginning to spiral out of control he suddenly lunged forward and offered a supportive arm around Clint's waist.

"Hey, buddy, you all right?" he questioned. "Need me to get you over to the porcelain throne or something? Look, it's not that bad—"

"I feel like I'm gonna pass out." Clint groaned.

"Well, don't do that here, hold on. Let me get you out that-a-way. Move your feet."

"I thought—" Clint paused, he swallowed hard, drinking in the image of himself as Tony guided him away. "I thought . . ."

"Thought what?" Tony asked. They were already at the bed. He helped Clint to sit on it and held the archer's shoulder's up in his hands.

"I . . ." Clint tried desperately to gather his thoughts, but the image of his face kept flashing through his mind. His face, the look in his eyes, the blue crystal that once belonged to Loki now faded to nothing, the scar—

Tony tapped Clint's face. The last thing he wanted was the guy to pass out because of his wardrobe choice. "Hey, what were you thinking? That purple looks good on you? Cause that's what I think too. In fact, you should wear it every day."

Clint shook his head, avoiding hyperventilation, but just barely. "I thought it was worse." He finally got out. "I thought it was so much worse. I thought I was done. Down and out. I haven't looked at myself since Loki. I never wanted to. I thought, you know, I would just still see him there. Hiding behind my eyes."

Tony pulled Clint's head up until they were looking at each other. "Hey, you thought he was still there? That we could see him every time we saw you?"

Ashamed, Clint nodded.

Tony closed his eyes and sadly shook his head side to side. "God, Clint, explains all the missing mirrors in your room. Why didn't you just say something? I would have told you the truth. Steve would have. You two have been buddy buddy since the other night."

"I was just so worried, I didn't want to look. Not with what I thought I'd see." Clint said, almost in a daze

Tony sat beside him, taking up the free slot on the box spring that was more granite slab then actual bed. There were plenty of things he could say, or try to. But half of them weren't worth the breath it took to get the words out. Eventually, after sitting beside each other for long enough Clint was the one to break the silence.

"Some pair we make." He muttered. The fingers on his left hand were subconsciously picking at the nails on his right.

Tony was shivering, saying nothing. His mind too had dragged him back to the subway tunnel and the dark memories that trapped him there.

When the door slammed open again, Clint leaped to his feet and pulled his bow off the wall. Tony fussed with his bracelet and half a wall's worth of windows blew out to make room for his Iron Man suit.

Standing in the doorway was Thor and Steve. Both had a devilish look on their faces and were obviously seeking out some camaraderie to join whatever merrymaking they already had in the works. The sight of having disturbed Clint and Tony's bonding threw Steve into even more of a guffaw. Thor didn't understand the joke, but he gave a middle finger to the success of them destroying the room. He should have given a thumbs up, but Tony may have not taught him which finger was appropriate for what situation.

"Sorry, sorry!" Steve exclaimed. "But you gotta see what just came on."

"If it isn't the latest exploits of that blasted Reed Richards funding another international flop, I really don't care." Tony reported. He was already in his Iron Man suit, but lifted the shield over his face for posterity. Regardless of his protest, he was already following after Steve who had bounded down the hall again.

After taking a minute to steady his pounding heart, Clint found himself unable to be excused from the party. Thor literally walked over and without much warning, lifted him up and hoisted him towards the living room. After a few kicks against the side of his head, Clint was able to convince the Asgardian to drop him or else suffer his wrath. It wasn't surprising that Thor began to laugh not unlike the disbelief shown by the Hulk just a day ago.

Rather than injure his friend's pride, Thor did drop him. But another thought occurred to him just as quickly and he could not prevent from mentioning it.

"Clinton of Barton, I must applaud you on the remarkable garment adorning you."

_Oh yeah,_ Clint thought. In the wake of his being bombarded with his own reflection he'd forgotten all about that.

"Thanks. By the way, you do know my name is not _'Clinton of Barton' _right? It's Clint Barton. That's it. I'm not _of_ anything."

Thor boomed again. "Ah, You are too modest of your heritage my friend. Barton must be a mighty land to produce men as you. Embrace that lineage."

Clint sighed. He didn't plan on pointing out that the lineage of Barton was full of drunks, shy mothers, beating, heavy handed fathers, and abusive brothers. Being of Barton was not the compliment Thor surely wished it had been.

They had just entered the sunken living room across from the kitchen. Banner sat there, urging them to hush and listen as Steve and Tony hurried to sit. On the television screen was a highlight of the bar they had all decided to crash the night before. A news reporter did a bit piece about the unexpected visitors that had the local watering hole hopping. After the quick introduction, the scene changed to a look inside the club. Various viral videos recounted the night of drinking. Someone caught Tony's beer chug on camera. Steve danced an original foxtrot with three girls at once. Thor balanced chicks cheerleader style.

Fun and games aside, the reporter was quick to mention the club had been temporarily shut down until further notice. A sudden outbreak of bacterial meningities was to blame, but by the look of all the men in SHIELD suits, it was probably more something to do with Thor leaving his hammer behind. In fact, as the cameraman panned around, they distinctly caught a glimpse of Nick Fury standing right beside Mjolnir. Unmistakably, the director himself reached out to the hammer and gave it a tug.

Like bowling pins the men knocked back in their seats as a host of hysteria filled the air. Even as the news changed to some other random story, they continued to hang off the couches and hold their sides lest their guts burst sideways. Clint thanked heaven for Banner's awesome drug cocktail.

"I suppose I have left Mjolnir too long in its repose. My friends, I must depart momentarily to retrieve it." Thor admitted.

Steve, still biting back his laughing, halted him. "Hang out a sec, I'll grab my jacket and come out with you. I feel like going out."

Tony barked. "What? And the other night wasn't bad enough? Anyone else kinda forget that I have almost been killed twice now by Steve's ancient bad guys?"

Steve shrugged. "HYDRA didn't shoot you out of the sky. And I didn't invite you to go. Stay here, be safe and sound. I'll pick you up a doggy bag."

Thor snorted. "Dog. I must discover what this dog is. I have heard that they are edible."

"That's a hot dog, and it's not related to pet dogs or doggy bags. Just go stand on the roof and call mojo back or something like you always do." Stark replied.

"No, we're going out. Thor's going to learn about Cooney Island hot dogs and now that I just said that I want a funnel cake." Steve said definitively. "Come if you want. Bring the suit."

"I'll make you a suit!" Tony said, thrusting his way out of the couch.

The threat hung in the air between them, and the three barreled out of the room as quickly as they'd come together. Bruce waited just slightly longer. His attention rested on Clint for a long time. He regarded the man's physical appearance, as always. It was slightly uncomfortably sitting under his gaze, but Clint bore the brunt of it. He had developed some kind of link with the guy. Maybe not Banner exactly, even though the doctor proved to be a stand up ally. Clint for some reason preferred the Hulk. He wasn't sure why. Half the time the big green monster was more irritating then helpful but many could say the same thing about Clint's whole life.

"Hey, thanks for helping out the other night." Clint said, ending Banner's silent inspection.

Bruce shrugged. "I wish I was a little more help. I probably should have waited before tearing up the room so much."

"Nah, I get it. But Hulk. I mean, he was a jerk. But so am I sometimes. He's a handful too, but he did a lot of good. Don't think I could have done anything without him." Clint explained in a rambling sort of way.

Bruce gave him a lopsided grin. He leaned forward, patted Clint's knee a couple times and stood. "Well, I'm taking off to baby sit those three. Don't need a repeat of recent events. That stupid defense summit Tony keeps getting kept away from was postponed another month. At least we can rest easy until then."

Clint scoffed a little, but nodded his head. "Just in time for me to get my arrows back."

"Yeah, well do me and the other guy a favor and quit pushing yourself. I'm getting a little tired of picking you off the sidewalk with a spatula. Don't let her keep you up all night either."

Bruce's final cryptic comment was lost to the air as he rushed to catch up with the boys. Clint turned around on the couch to watch the his retreat, all the while wondering to himself just what Bruce meant. He didn't have to wonder long. Natasha stood in the doorway Bruce just left through. This time, there was zero foreplay with knives or derringers. She wore her skin tight black suit with the zipper pulled down low, too low for her comfort or mission functionality.

Clint gulped down the sudden taste of mint and strawberries that appeared unbidden in his mouth.

"So." Natasha said, the sexy Russian accent pulling her words into twists of lust. "Heard you like Mockingbirds."

Clint looked up and down, really slow in case somehow she left him with that image alone and nothing more. "Actually, Russian double agents are much more alluring to me."

She swayed over, one long leg following behind the other. She stood only a foot away. Nothing but sofa fabric and clothing separated them.

"Hell, Nat, never knew you cared. Really. I'm being totally honest here and—"

One gloved hand cut through the air and pressed his lips closed. Two velvet lips parted as she whispered. "Shut up and pull on the cowl."

Without thinking twice, Clint did as she asked. He leaned up on the sofa with his knees, waiting for her to reach down and meet his lips with her own. Instead he heard the unmistakable click of a cell phone camera.

Natasha snickered to herself as she inspected the quality of the camera shot and began walking away. "This is going on the internet."

"Tasha? Tasha, wait a minute! Hey, I thought—!"

. . . _you shoot me down,_

_but I won't fall_

_I am titanium_

The End


End file.
